Does Newswatch = Points of View?

Carrie Gracie's claim was a lot more realistic and justified. She was part of a team of international editors working within the same division of the BBC. It was quite right to draw the distinction between the various amounts being paid according to gender, as to all intents and purposes, they were doing the same job with a different locational focus.

However, Samira Ahmed's case is without justification in my opinion. She is trying to draw a distinction between two completely different roles on completely different networks and within two different divisions of the BBC. The only parallel is that both programmes feature viewers' feedback. Aside from that, everything else is different so how she can claim she is being paid unfairly when she is/was paid the same as her predecessor on Newswatch is the bit that is baffling to some people. She isn't doing the same work as Jeremy Vine and that seems to be forming the crux of the BBC's defence.


I don't see what age has to do with anything.

“It is likely that Jeremy Vine spends less time in make-up than I do. Women are more likely to be criticised for their appearance on air.”

It's interesting that the BBC are using the argument that Newswatch is little more than a cheap programme to fill up the schedules, that's exactly what PoV was invented to be, to fill up the rest of an hour after a US import had the ad breaks taken out.

If I recall correctly it was set up in the aftermath of the Hutton report.

If the case goes in favour of Samira I imagine the ramifications could be significant, no just limited to the BBC. For example could BBC radio presenters theoretically demand to be paid the same as another radio presenter who hosts a programme of similar length on a different BBC radio station?

In wider industry, that’s why organizations have grading structures, compensation and benefit policies and quartiles of pay which are applied across the entire organization regardless of race, gender, etc etc. And in most industries, exceptions are genuinely exceptions. Why should broadcast media operate differently? (Not a question to you, Charlie. Just a general point I’m making whilst, of course, I recognize this issue has huge ramifications far and wide across the corporation and they probably don’t know how to fix it! Without impacting hugely in the financial sense, the solution is probably a blended solution of pay cuts and pay increases and those who don’t like it would have to move on, so to speak........)

Performance/presentation industries don't abide in any way to the conventional workplace and business culture and etiquette. It's a simple as that.

The question is whether legally they should.

Oh, I don't disagree, painful times ahead perhaps !

It's arguably a form of 'market forces' !