The BBC has once again been hauled into a gender discrimination row as nine-time former Wimbledon women’s champion, Martina Navratilova, has accused the corporation of being a “good old boy’s network” upon discovering pay inequality.
Navratilova was shocked to learn that her fellow Wimbledon pundit, John McEnroe, was paid ten times more than her.
McEnroe is in the top echelons of the BBC pay list, appearing in the £150,000-199,999 a year bracket, chiefly for his work at the annual tennis championships. Navratilova was being paid a comparatively measly sum of £15,000 for her punditry at Wimbledon, The Guardian reported.
During an interview for ‘Panorama: Britain’s Equal Pay Scandal’, Navratilova said that she was told that she was getting a comparable amount to men who were doing the same job as her.
“We were not told the truth, that’s for sure,” Navratilova said. “The bottom line is that male voices are valued more than women’s voices.”
Navratilova added that her agent will ask for more money going forward.
BBC Sport defended the gender pay gap accusations by saying that McEnroe’s job was of, “a different scale, scope and time commitment (to Navratilova)”, adding: “They are simply not comparable.”
A BBC Sport spokeswoman said, “Along with Sue Barker, John is regarded as the face of our Wimbledon coverage. He is a defining voice within the BBC’s coverage. He is widely considered to be the best expert/commentator in the sport, highly valued by our audiences and his contract means he cannot work for another UK broadcaster without our permission. His pay reflects all of this – gender isn’t a factor.”
That being said, BBC is facing serious flak from their female employees. Carrie Grace reigned from her position as the China editor in protest of being paid less than her male counterparts. She now works for BBC in London and says that she may still leave the corporation, according to The Telegraph.
Maxine Mawhinney, former BBC news presenter, said she is deliberating bringing a case against the broadcaster over salary disparity. She left the BBC after 20 years after the organisation published a pay list last year.
“I do know that I have sat beside men on TV doing the same job, probably (with) the same experience or I might have been even more experienced, and I know they were earning more than me,” Mawhinney said.
The BBC’s director of news and current affairs, Fran Unsworth, said the BBC is in a “big fight here for the best ideas, the best talent”.
“We don’t think we have acted illegally in regard to equal pay,” she said.
“That doesn’t mean, however, there won’t be instances and cases where there is inequality and we need to address those.”
The BBC gender pay issue came into the lime light last year when BBC published the aforementioned list of the organisation’s top earning on-air stars. The list went onto reveal that just a third were women. This, in turn, resulted in 40 of its high-profile female presenters, like Clare Balding, Fiona Bruce and Emily Maitlis, to call for change in an open letter to director general Tony Hall, asking him to “act now” and tackle the gender pay gap.
Since then, the issue of gender pay gap has become a (more) prominent topic of discourse. Radio 2’s Chris Evans was revealed to be the highest earning media figure, taking £2 million, whereas the highest paid woman was Claudia Winkleman, earning between £450,000-499,999.