Woman's Hour presenters paid 40pc less than other BBC shows

Woman's Hour presenters are paid 40 per cent less than those on "comparable" BBC shows, Clare Balding has revealed.

The presenter, who was this week revealed to be among the corporation's highest paid talent, claimed that the reason for the disparity was because the Radio 4 programme has "only ever been presented by women".

She is one of more than 40 high-profile BBC women who have this weekend written to Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC director-general, demanding that he "act now" to end the gender pay gap at the corporation. 

Jane Garvey, Sue Barker, Emily Maitlis, Sarah Montague, Mishal Husain,  Kirsty Wark, Elaine Paige, Samira Ahmed, Victoria Derbyshire, Angela Rippon, Sue Barker, Alex Jones and Fiona Bruce all added their names to the letter calling for equal pay throughout the organisation before the promised date of 2020. 

Balding said that one of the reasons that she signed the letter was that in 2010 she had two months with nothing in her diary and therefore sat in for presenters on a number of different radio shows. 

She told BBC Broadcasting House's presenter Paddy O'Connell: "I did a few jobs sitting in on different programmes.  I did your job at BH, I did Saturday Live, on Radio 4 as well, I did Five Live Weekend Breakfast and Jenni Murray was having a hip replacement at the time and I did Woman's Hour. 

"Afterwards, and you know how these jobs are, you can't really negotiate much about rates, I mean if you are lucky you might get a free coffee thrown in, but we are not talking about negotiating massive contracts and I was doing it myself, and the Women's Hour was much - I mean 40 per cent - lower than the other programmes and I said to Jane (Garvey) afterwards "this is really odd", because they wouldn't budge on it. 

"I said: "It is significantly lower than doing a weekend breakfast show on Five Live or Radio 4 or indeed BH".

I said to her: "I think there is a problem here, it is because only women have ever presented it". It is the first time I thought: "Whoa, red flag"."

Balding, who with a salary of between £150k and £199k earns less than male sports presenters including Gary Lineker - who is on more than £1.75m - and  John Inverdale - who earns between £200k and £249k - added that she had thought that the programmes "should have been directly comparable". 

She said she and Garvey have continued to discuss the problem and she predicted that the BBC pay disclosures would reveal a stark gender pay gap. 

O'Connell, who did not make it onto the list of the 96 stars earning more than £150,000, sounded uncomfortable as he noted: "There is a lot you are getting off your chest there."

When he questioned why it had taken her seven years to go public Balding said that it was was difficult when you think that you are the only one and women were reluctant to "put their head above the parapit" because they would be described as "shrill" or "demanding".