Match of the Day host Gary Lineker remains the BBC’s top earner – coining in more than £3,500 every day.
The ex-footballer was yesterday named top dog in the taxpayer-funded corporation’s salary rankings, ahead of other big names like Zoe Ball, Fiona Bruce and Clive Myrie.
The Beeb’s Annual Report showed Lineker, 63, who sparked a war of words with Harry Kane at the Euros over England’s poor performance, is paid within the bracket of £1,350,000 – £1,354,999.
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But it was elsewhere on the list that raised even more eyebrows last night.
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Shamed former news presenter Huw Edwards was revealed as one of the BBC’s biggest earners last year – despite being caught up in an explicit photo scandal.
He came third in the list, just behind wage-drop Radio 2 host Zoe Ball, who saw her salary reduce to between £950,000 and £954,999.
Huw was only on screens for three months after he was taken off air in July 2023 but managed to bag a £40,000 pay hike before he resigned.
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The News at Ten presenter, alleged to have paid a teenager for explicit pictures, earned up to £480,000 across the last financial year and was still the BBC’s highest-paid newsreader.
Huw quit the BBC on medical advice in April, nine months after being removed from screens, but he remained on full pay and had even received the bonus payment of £40,000.
The documents released yesterday show Edwards’s pay rose from £435,000-439,999 in 2022/23 to £475,000-479,999.
The extra amount was understood to have been awarded in recognition of the presenter’s work announcing the death of Queen Elizabeth II, and his role in the commemorative events that followed.
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Speaking yesterday the BBC’s director general Tim Davie said: “No-one wants to waste a pound but we need to act proportionately and fairly and I think that’s what we did.
“Prior to any breaking of the (Edwards) story, people do get pay rises for extended responsibility and more hours’ work.
“So that’s fairly normal, and that’s what resulted in the change.”
The TaxPayers Alliance slammed the salaries and billed them as “extravagant” after the release of the Beeb’s accounts yesterday.
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John O’Connell, chief executive of the body, said: “Licence fee payers will be livid at the excess and extravagance of the top level pay packets at the Beeb.
“BBC bosses love to bang the drum for the quality and quantity of the broadcaster’s output, yet are clearly terrified to put it to the test of the free market, instead relying on a punitive and pernicious TV tax to raise revenue.
“The next licence fee review should recognise that this model of funding is decades out of date and needs to be replaced with a subscription service.”
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
