BBC pays straight White male executives less than their peers, says report

Despite the BBC’s claims of commitment to equality, straight White male executives are the least compensated in the company.

Figures in the BBC’s 2023/24 annual report published in The Telegraph reveal that compensation for senior managers follows a social hierarchy. Those who identify as LGBTQ are at the top, receiving 15.6% higher pay than others. They are followed by Black, Asian, and other ethnic minorities, who earn salaries 12.6% higher on average than Whites. Disabled executives earn 8.4% more than their able counterparts, and women earn 5.7% more than men.

“Top tip if you want to earn more at the BBC: don’t be a straight, white male,” said Reform UK Deputy Leader Richard Tice. “People should be appointed and paid based on merit, not on their ethnicity or sexual preference.”

The BBC also discriminates against hiring straight White men. The corporation has set company-wide DEI targets of 50% women, at least 20% Black, Asian, or from another ethnic minority, and at least 12% disabled employees.

“Licence fee payers [viewers] will be dismayed by these reverse pay gaps,” said Elliot Keck of the TaxPayers’ Alliance. “[The BBC’s] obsession with diversity, equality and inclusion has resulted in the very discrimination that it was supposed to protect against. The BBC needs to foster a culture of meritocracy, not one of virtue-signalling.”

The BBC, however, insists its hiring and compensation are based on merit.

“The BBC is committed to fair and equal pay for all, and all appointments are made on merit,” a BBC spokesman said. “An external equal pay audit recently concluded that there was no evidence of systemic bias in our pay approach or policies. We continue to monitor our pay gaps closely and do expect to see small fluctuations year-on-year, and we’d advise against the selective use of figures.”

The spokesman did not explain how 15.6% pay gap is a small fluctuation, nor did he discuss whether the fluctuation ever occurs in the other direction.

Network in hot water for Hamas collusion

The accusations of discrimination come just weeks after the legacy media network attracted scrutiny from British officials for colluding with Hamas on its Gaza documentary.

The BBC’s film “Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone” paints Hamas and its supporters as victims of Israel, which is portrayed as a genocidal aggressor even as the Gaza population steadily increases while innocent Israelis remain chained in tunnels amid widespread torture.

The film is narrated by a 13-year-old boy who has since been revealed to be the son of senior Hamas member Ayman Alyazouri. The BBC denied the link to Hamas after it was exposed and tried to place the blame on Hoyo Films, the London-based production company that partnered with the BBC. 

However, the Daily Mail’s review of the BBC’s contract with Hoyo Films suggests the network’s claim is false. One of the agreement’s clauses expressly says that “[p]ermission will be sought from the parents’ guardians every time we film with them . . . the producers will act and work as we would in the UK.” Another says: “We will address editorial compliance issues as they arise by having regular updates and phone calls with the commissioning editor.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch issued a letter to BBC Director-General Tim Davie expressing her shock at the network’s “potential collusion with Hamas” and demanding a full investigation into its pro-Hamas coverage.

“It is now clear to me that you should commission a full independent inquiry to consider this and wider allegations of systemic BBC bias against Israel,” wrote Badenoch. “How could any programme from there be commissioned, without comprehensive work by the BBC to ensure that presenters or participants were – as far as possible – not linked to [Hamas’] appalling regime?” she added.

“Would the BBC be this naive if it was commissioning content from North Korea or the Islamic Republic of Iran?”

Badenoch called on Davie to launch an investigation into the BBC’s coverage of the Gaza war, “where Israeli interlocutors are robustly interrogated and Palestinian officials can speak with little challenge.”