Purves opinion on male BBC presenters (36)

Male BBC presenters are vain and greedy, says Libby Purves

The veteran broadcaster Libby Purves has accused male BBC presenters of being “vain and greedy” and called on Tony Hall, the director general, to better address the issue of equal pay at the corporation. Purves, who presented Radio 4’s Midweek from 1983 until it was dropped last year, said there was no excuse for a lack of equality in newsroom pay. The dispute has been simmering since last summer since the BBC published its pay scales.

• Purves said she accepted the BBC had “a problem with inherited contracts”. “One would like the director-general (DG) of the BBC to spend a week reading the BBC’s payroll and noting the gender inequality,” she said.
• “Some complain that the pay gap exists because women don’t negotiate,” Purves writes in the latest issue of Radio Times. “I would say that it’s more about men being vain and greedy.
• In an interview for Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour last week, Gracie explained she had turned down a £45,000 pay increase that would have taken her overall pay to £180,000 because it would still have remained below that of two male international editors – the US editor, Jon Sopel, and the Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen.