BBC chief Tony Hall pledges he is tackling the gender pay gap but admits: 'Some salaries sound gargantuan'

I wonder whether BBC bosses have been a bit dozy on the issue down the years. Hall declines politely to criticise his predecessor Mark Thompson (though that appears to be the implication) and points out that he has heavily promoted the number of female high-earners to top-tier jobs since he re-berthed at the BBC in 2012 after stints running the Royal Opera House and as deputy chairman of Channel 4.

“In areas like drama we have got there already,” he notes. The number and prominence of women on the Ten O’Clock and Six O’Clock news has increased, with “woman after woman coming up”. A couple of examples follow, though the list of women in the upper-mid tier staffers in news and current affairs, between £150,000 and £200,000, is truly scant. I suggest that the numbers are still a long way adrift of full potential. He nods.

Encountering Hall in his days as head of news in the late Nineties, he was one of the few BBC suits who did seem to take the quest for female talent and diversity seriously. But the gap between intention and outcome remains wide in large institutions.

He says he wants to “manage female careers” much more pro-actively in BBC cadres, both in management and on air, rather than leaving women to somehow find mentors or hope to make their way through some arcane board process, of a type that the BBC comedy W1A parodied.

How does Hall feel about revelations that he and his management team opposed making public? “We won a lot of arguments [with government], like the 11-year charter agreement in difficult conditions,” he replies, equably. “We didn’t win this one.” He says he thinks he will “have to manage inflationary expectations and, to some extent, it is a poachers’ charter. But I am pragmatic. We accept it and move on.”

Temperamentally, this is a very “TH” take. The director-general is known as “NBH” — his spare office seat in the heart of New Broadcasting House. He can be remarkably fierce in defence of his beliefs but supple in accepting setbacks. Those who negotiate with him speak of his bullishness with a flick of icy resolve. If there is a criticism, it is, as one insider puts it, “that hearing an encouraging message from the top does not guarantee anything happening at the grass roots”.

He acknowledges that “some sums sound gargantuan” to an audience paid a fraction of top BBC salaries, he cites his defence in the context of a globalised media market in which the BBC needs to compete if it is not to end up as a niche provider along the lines of America’s pared-down PBS or NPR. “You have to remember that five or 10 years ago we were in a domestic market and now we are in a global one.” He cites senior staff and stars receiving vast offers from Apple, Google or Amazon.

But can the BBC licence-payer be expected to pony up, in times of limited public expenditure, to keep high-fliers out of the hands of digital behemoths with unlimited spend? The divide between bits of the BBC earmarked “marketable assets” and those told to accept a public-sector pay restraint of one per cent do look glaring.

Hall insists that he and his senior team have not had their hands forced by the revelations. “Our bill for talent is down 25 per cent since I took over and we do live very consciously within our means.” Contract reviews are under way, he says, a carefully-worded way of saying some on-air staff may find their deals less generous in order to pay women more.

That brings us to the revolt of the BBC women. Big hitters such as Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey at Woman’s Hour have made little secret of their dissatisfaction with their pay and have fought a long internal battle to rectify it.

Both were awarded modest rises in advance of the review but resentments linger. At Radio 5 Live, Rachel Burden pointedly tweeted that she was “in the middle of the £100-150k category” after her co-host on the radio Nicky Campbell pocketed £400,000. The D-G looks a bit pained at individual examples.

He does, however, nail the “2020 challenge” to the BBC’s door, assuring that there will be the pay parity by then. A bold claim, and a difficult one to deliver on present budgets. The corridors of NBH are full of presenters planning a more assertive stance in pay rounds, with employment lawyers in the wings.

The cultural dilemma the BBC faces is how much of this is about internal rejigs — and how much it needs to look outside its doors. The Beeb should be “open and porous to talent and promote it very pro-actively,” he says. I fear this brings on a bit of a Duchess of Cambridge eye-roll from me, because as rewarding as the BBC is to contribute to (I regularly present for it on a freelance basis) — overall, pro-active and porous are not exactly words that spring to mind.

He spots the protest gesture and breaks into laughter. Hall has a disarming tendency to look at his most benevolent when someone has just been a bit rude to him. “He hates making enemies,” confides a senior staffer. “Given the number of foes the BBC already has, that’s a good thing.”

I suspect the moment bothers him, though, because he returns to the theme and he wants to know what else he might do. “Give me clever ideas! I believe in a very open BBC. I have brought people in from outside because you do need a balance of people who know how the BBC operates — and those who refresh the culture.”

He thinks he has changed the culture of the BBC as a citadel — “When I last worked here, partnerships were something imposed. Now we do them very much in the spirit of what we can learn from those we work with.”

It raises the question that preoccupies the BBC canteens — how long will “TH” run the show? “I am enjoying myself, there’s no rush to go anywhere as long as I am delivering.

Will the energetic Hall be around to see all this through? He’s a trim 66 this year, with a boundless appetite for travel and opera. I suggest it might be a good time to tell us how long he intends to stick around and he roars with laughter — and then fudges. “I’m at an age and lucky enough to do the job that I really want to do and can contribute most to.”

Beyond the pay rows, the national broadcaster will face more tensions about impartiality and its definition. “In a more fragmented polity, the importance of impartiality is bigger than ever. We need to think more about how we communicate that.”

He veers off into a segue about his plans to embrace voice-recognition technology — he’s “fascinated by [Amazon’s] Alexa”, the virtual personal assistant. I suggest he asks her why the female pay gap persisted so long in broadcast — and he grins ruefully that he’ll try it.

His present TV enthusiasm is the new Doctor Who, Jodie Whittaker. So is she paid as much as the BBC’s last time-traveller”? “Yes, there is parity for the same amount of work,” says Hall, earnestly. “And I do think it is time for 13th Time Lord to be a woman. I watched my first Doctor Who in the Sixties, hiding behind the sofa. As a devoted Whovian, I’m incredibly excited.”

@annemcelvoy

Anne McElvoy is senior editor at The Economist