BBC Director-General Tony Hall has defended Gary Lineker’s bumper pay packet, amid a row over plans to scrap free licence fees for over-75s.
Gary, who presents BBC Sport coverage including Match Of The Day, takes home a salary between £1,750,000 and £1,754,999 per year, according to the corporation’s annual report.
The sum makes him the BBC’s highest-paid star.
Giving to a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) committee, Lord Hall insisted Gary’s pay is justified, pointing out that presenters working for non-public service broadcasters often earn far more.
He said: “Well maybe in the future AI [artificial intelligence] will give us a cheap way of presenting programmes without presenters at all.
“But let me just say, what’s interesting about Match Of The Day, or rather the Premier League, is that roughly two thirds of the audiences for premier league football are free to air through the BBC through things like Match Of The Day and Gary plays a very big part in that.”
“And you know as I do that sports presentation is a very different part of the market. People are paid a lot of money, much, much, more than by BT, by Sky and so on, but that of course is different to public service.”
Stating that “Gary does a great job for the BBC” Hall added: “What we have also been doing though is recognising where the market doesn’t play so much of an impact on news presenters and current affairs presenters for example where the pay for presenters has gone down.
“Although notwithstanding the fact we’ve also lost some people.”
His comments come following the announcement of controversial plans to scrap free TV licences for over-75s.
The BBC was met with outcry when it announced the decision, which will affect 3 million pensioners, in June.
The new scheme is set to come into effect in June 2020 and after means-testing, those found to be ineligible for a free licence will have to pay £154.50 a year for a colour television and £52 a year for a black and white set.
While the broadcaster has taken the flak, the story is more complex given the move came after the government decided to offload the financial burden of the current scheme – worth £745 million – onto the BBC.