For Similar Shows, BBC paid Male Host £3,000 & Female £465

For years, Samira Ahmed has presented a weekly, 15-minute programme on BBC television that allows viewers to question the broadcaster’s executives about its shows. She’s never been paid more than 465 pounds, or $598, per episode. During much of that time, Jeremy Vine presented another weekly, 15-minute program for the BBC that allows viewers to sound off about the network’s coverage. He was paid £3,000 for each episode.

On Monday, accompanied by other prominent BBC presenters & journalists, Ahmed went to court to sue the broadcaster over unequal pay. The BBC has long attracted criticism over disparities in the way it pays its staff, & Ahmed’s complaint comes just over a year after the BBC was forced to apologise to a senior journalist over pay disparities.

“On the back of my BBC ID card are written the BBC values, which include ‘we respect each other & celebrate our diversity,’ & ‘we take pride in delivering quality & value for money,’” Ahmed said in a statement. “I just ask why the BBC thinks I am worth only a sixth of the value of the work of a man doing a very similar job,” she said. Ahmed argued that both shows were similar — except in one respect: Her programme, “Newswatch,” has an audience of between 1.5 million & 2 million, while Vine’s programme, “Points of View,” attracts about 800,000.

In a statement, the BBC said that it was committed to equal pay & denied that gender was a factor in deciding Ahmed’s fee. It described Vine’s programme as “an entertainment programme with a long history & is a household name with the public.” “Newswatch — while an important program — isn’t,” the firm said. The BBC said that Ahmed was paid the same as her male predecessor when she started presenting “Newswatch,” & added that “News & entertainment are very different markets.”

Ahmed has previously sought, & won, backdated pay for her work on programmes for BBC radio, where male peers were being paid between 33% & 50% more than she was.

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