Huw Edwards remained the BBC’s highest-paid newsreader despite being suspended for most of last year.
The News at Ten presenter, who was taken off air last July over claims that he paid a teenager for explicit pictures, earned up to £480,000 across the last financial year.
Edwards finally quit the BBC in April, nine months after being removed from screens.
However, he remained on full pay and had even received a bonus payment before he was taken off air, the BBC’s Annual Report shows.
Edwards’s pay rose from £435,000-439,999 in 2022/23 to £475,000-479,999, documents show.
The extra amount was understood to have been awarded in recognition of the presenter’s surefooted work announcing the death of Queen Elizabeth II, and his role in the commemorative events that followed.
He was on air for the first three months only of the 2023/24 reporting period.
The realisation that he would still appear prominently in the annual pay list, published today, had prompted fresh urgency within the BBC to settle his employment status, insiders said.
The BBC announced Edwards had resigned in April, saying his decision was made on the basis of medical advice from his doctors.
He had been suspended following allegations that a senior broadcaster at the corporation had paid a teenager £35,000 for sexually explicit images.
His wife, Vicky Flind, later revealed Edwards to be the celebrity at the centre of the scandal, and said he was suffering from “serious mental health issues”. Edwards has made no public comment since and was reportedly too unwell to co-operate with BBC inquiries into his case.
Asked about the presenter’s pay rise, BBC Director-General Tim Davie confirmed it was awarded before the story which forced him off air broke.
Mr Davie said: “People on the list would be getting pay rises for extended responsibility and actually if they’re doing more hours of work. That is fairly normal business.”
He said Edwards had received no additional pay settlement when he quit the BBC, and he defended the amount of licence fee money paid to Edwards whilst he was off air.
“We’re always trying to be very judicious with the spending of public money, no-one wants to waste a pound,” Mr Davie said.
“But what you’re trying to do since the onset of that affair is act proportionately, fairly and navigate this appropriately. I think that’s what we did. We wouldn’t have wasted money if weren’t doing the right thing.”
It was common for individuals to continue to be paid during an HR process, he suggested.
Confirmation of Edwards’s pay was greeted with disappointment in the BBC newsroom.
“It’s an incredible amount of licence fee money to pay somebody who is not working when they are gutting Newsnight because of cuts,” one insider said.
BBC sources said the corporation had little choice but to pay Edwards his full salary. A figure said: “You have to follow legal due process when an employee is suspended. In this case, it took a frustratingly long time before the process was concluded.”
BBC faces licence fee challenge
When BBC News bulletins are leading with trouble at Strictly Come Dancing, pushing Kamala Harris down the running order, you know the corporation is in the midst of a full-blown crisis.
Presenting his annual report, Director-General Tim Davie was forced to apologise for rehearsal room excesses at the BBC’s top-rated entertainment show and explain why Huw Edwards remains the broadcaster’s highest-paid journalist, despite making his final screen appearance last July.
Davie batted away the Strictly furore – he’s sorry for anyone who had a bad experience on the show but competitors are in it to win it. Tougher safeguarding procedures will right the ship and put the fun back into Strictly this Autumn.
As for Edwards, the BBC’s duty of care – perhaps less prominently applied where Strictly contestants are concerned – required him to be suspended on full pay whilst under medical care.
The report suggested greater, existential threats to the BBC. The number of licence fee refuseniks increased by another 500,000, leaving the BBC with 2m fewer paying customers since 2018.
A further 500 jobs are to go with the BBC needing to make £200m in savings. More programme cuts will follow the gutting of Newsnight.
BBC One viewing is in structural decline and just 69 per cent of Britons aged under 16 say they consumed any BBC content in an average week.
Davie is fortunate that new Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy says she will abandon the BBC-bashing of her Tory predecessors.
The Strictly storm will pass but Davie should use the honeymoon period with ministers to drum up imaginative alternatives to the flat-rate licence fee.
The rate of cancellations suggests that the compulsory charge could rapidly lose public consent in the digital streaming era.
Total payment for the BBC’s biggest stars, defined as those earning over £178,000, hit a seven-year high of £25.4m. Clive Myrie and Laura Kuenssberg were among those whose pay rose by more than £10,000.
Gary Lineker tops the BBC annual pay list for the seventh year running. His earnings remained static at £1.35m. His current Match of the Day deal runs until the end of next season, with Lineker indicating he wants to stay on the show.
However, he is understood to have turned down an offer to front the BBC’s Champions League highlights show which begins this autumn.
He has continued to tweet about political events, enjoying new freedoms granted him after the BBC relaxed social media rules for non-News presenters.
Lineker’s Goalhanger podcast production company, home to shows like The Rest Is Politics, is an increasingly lucrative business, generating millions of downloads each month.
Zoe Ball is again the second highest earner with the Radio 2 presenter taking home £955,000, down £30,000 on last year.
Alan Shearer, in third place, also sees a drop in pay from £450,000 to £385,000, reflecting last year’s absence of a major international football tournament for the Match of the Day pundit.
Nick Robinson has moved up the pay list, with his earnings increasing by £70,000 to £350,000. Robinson has added a Today podcast to his Political Thinking podcast.
Myrie, who picked up some of Edwards’s News at Ten shifts, gets a £20,000 pay increase to £315,000.
Vernon Kay, who replaced Ken Bruce on the Radio 2 morning show, shoots into the pay list, earning up to £325,000.
The figures do not include the pay of entertainment stars including Claudia Winkleman or any of the Strictly Come Dancing presenting team. Their salaries are paid by BBC Studios, the corporation’s commercial wing.
The BBC has successfully argued that payments from Studios and independent producers are commercially sensitive information and should not be disclosed.
The talent bill increased despite the departure of big names including Ken Bruce, who earned £390,000 and Sue Barker (£185,000).
Mr Davie also answered questions about the abuse scandal surrounding Strictly when he presented the Annual Report.
Edwards’ pay-out is understood to be dwarfed by the compensation the BBC paid to Andrew Flintoff last October, following the horror crash which left the Top Gear presenter with serious injuries.
The figure, said to be £9m, was paid by commercial wing BBC Studios, allowing the BBC to say it was not paid out of licence fee income.
BBC biggest earners 2023/24
(2022/23 figure in brackets)
Gary Lineker
£1,350,000-1,354,999
(£1,350,000-£1,354,999)Zoe Ball
£950,000-954,999
(£980,000-£984,999)Huw Edwards
£475,000-479,999
(£435,000-£439,999)Greg James
£415,000-419,999
(£395,000-£399,999)Stephen Nolan
£405,000-409,999
(£400,000-£404,999)Fiona Bruce
£405,000 – 409,999
(£395,000-£399,999)Lauren Laverne
£395,000 – 399,999
(£390,000 – £394,999)Alan Shearer
£380,000 – 384,999
(£445,000-£449,999)Naga Munchetty
£345,000-349,999
(£335,000 – £339,999)Nick Robinson
£345,000-349,999
(£275,000-279,999)Sophie Raworth
£325,000 – 329,999
(£365,000 – £369,999)Mishal Husain
£340,000-£349,999
(£315,000 – £319,999)Laura Kuenssberg
£325,000 – 329,999
(£305,000 – £309,999)Justin Webb
£320,000-324,999
(£280,000-284,999)Vernon Kay
£320,000-324,999
2022/3 NA
(£275,000-279,999)Sara Cox
£315,000-319,999
(£285,000 – £289,999)Scott Mills
£315,000-319,99
(£300,000-£304,999)Clive Myrie
£310,000-314,999
(£285,000-289,999)Amol Rajan
£310,00-314,999
(£335,000-£339,999)Nicky Campbell
£295,000-299,999
(£295,000-£299,999)Victoria Derbyshire
£295,000-299,000
(£295,000-£299,999)Jeremy Vine
£285,000-289,999
(£285,000-£289,999)Mark Chapman
£260,000-264,999
(£325,000-£329,999)Steve Wright (died in Feb 2024)
£205,000-209,999
(£360,000-364,999)Ken Bruce
Disappears from list
(£390,000 – £394,399)