London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Sep 08, 2025

Top BBC stars paid thousands to host private events

Top BBC stars paid thousands to host private events

Presenter Andrew Marr earned at least £5,000 for Zoom call with wealth manager, documents reveal
Big businesses are paying leading BBC news presenters tens of thousands of pounds to host events, according to newly released documents that show how financial institutions are employing the public broadcaster’s leading stars.

Andrew Marr, the £360,000-a-year host of BBC One’s Sunday morning politics show, was paid at least £5,000 extra by talking to staff and clients at the wealth management firm Brewin Dolphin on a Zoom call at the end of March.

A screengrab of the call seen by the Guardian shows Marr hosted the paid external event from a meeting room in the corporation’s Broadcasting House headquarters while wearing a BBC lanyard.

Responding to a question about Marr, a BBC spokesperson said: “We understand the logistical challenges brought on by the pandemic, but we would remind all staff there is a clear difference between using meeting spaces for BBC-related events compared to anything external.”

The Radio 4 presenter Justin Webb topped the league table of BBC stars with the most paid external events, receiving at least £20,000 during the first three months of this year for external work conducted on top of his £250,000 annual salary for hosting the Today programme.

He was paid at least £5,000 for hosting a breakfast briefing for the City-based management consultancy Proxima, and similar fees from the financial services trade body CISI, the car manufacturers’ trade body SMMT and the wealth management magazine CityWealth.

The actual amount received could have been higher as the BBC register requires staff to declare only whether each booking was worth more or less than £5,000.

For years, many high-profile BBC presenters have topped up their salaries by taking substantial fees from private companies to host awards shows, moderate panel events, and interview guests. Their presence helps attracts interest to the events, while presenters often viewed this income as making up the difference between their salary and what they felt they could earn at commercial news outlets.

However, following a series of scandals about conflicts of interest potentially affecting news coverage, the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie, has required that on-air journalists and senior executives publish details of their external event bookings in a regularly updated pay register.

The new disclosure log covers only January to March 2021, when the number of events and awards ceremonies was severely curtailed due to the Covid-19 lockdown. Despite this, dozens of prominent on-air presenters still registered payments for events conducted over Zoom and other video-conferencing services, although some staff said they were disappointed that unpaid speeches to schools and charities were not included on the list.

Some of the event bookings directly cross over with the topics covered by the journalists involved. Spencer Kelly, the host of BBC World’s Click technology show, was paid at least £5,000 by chairing a panel for the technology company Cisco. The home editor Mark Easton took a similar amount from the National Housing Federation, which represents the country’s housing associations.

The BBC Breakfast host Dan Walker received more than £5,000 for hosting an event for the wealth management company St James’s Place, and a similar sum from the Co-op.

The Irish law firm Mason Hayes and Curran hired the Newsnight host Emily Maitlis for a webinar to celebrate International Women’s Day, while other companies that hired BBC staff for speaking events in this period included Google and Microsoft.

The new rules were introduced after a series of scandals including the BBC’s North America editor, Jon Sopel, giving a paid speech for the tobacco company Philip Morris, and the former editorial director Kamal Ahmed taking £12,000 to speak at a hedge fund conference.

Eyebrows were raised in the BBC newsroom when Boris Johnson announced officially in 2019 he would be standing to be Conservative party leader while being interviewed by the BBC News host Huw Edwards at an insurance industry event. Both were being paid to attend when the headline-grabbing news was broken.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Court Staff Cover Up Banksy Image of Judge Beating a Protester
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Nayib Bukele Points Out Belgian Hypocrisy as Brussels Considers Sending Army into the Streets
Elon Musk Poised to Become First Trillionaire Under Ambitious Tesla Pay Plan
France, at an Impasse, Heads Toward Another Government Collapse
Burning the Minister’s House Helped Protesters to Win Justice: Prabowo Fires Finance Minister in Wake of Indonesia Protests
Brazil Braces for Fallout from Bolsonaro Trial by corrupted judge
The Country That Got Too Rich? Public Spending Dominates Norway Election
Nearly 40 Years Later: Nike Changes the Legendary Slogan Just Do It
Generations Born After 1939 Unlikely to Reach Age One Hundred, New Study Finds
End to a four-year manhunt in New Zealand: the father who abducted his children to the forests was killed, the three siblings were found
Germany Suspends Debt Rules, Funnels €500 Billion Toward Military and Proxy War Strategy
EU Prepares for War
BMW Eyes Growth in China with New All‑Electric Neue Klasse Lineup
Trump Threatens Retaliatory Tariffs After EU Imposes €2.95 Billion Fine on Google
Tesla Board Proposes Unprecedented One-Trillion-Dollar Performance Package for Elon Musk
US Justice Department Launches Criminal Mortgage-Fraud Probe into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook
Escalating Drug Trafficking and Violence in Latin America: A Growing Crisis
US and Taiwanese Defence Officials Held Secret Talks in Alaska
Report: Secret SEAL Team 6 Mission in North Korea Ordered by Trump in 2019 Ended in Failure
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Florida Murder Case: The Adelson Family, the Killing of Dan Markel, and the Trial of Donna Adelson
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Big Tech Executives Laud Trump at White House Dinner, Unveil Massive U.S. Investments
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
‘Looks Like a Wig’: Online Users Express Concern Over Kate Middleton
Brand-New $1 Million Yacht Sinks Just Fifteen Minutes After Maiden Launch in Turkey
Here’s What the FBI Seized in John Bolton Raid — and the Legal Risks He Faces
Florida’s Vaccine Revolution: DeSantis Declares War on Mandates
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
"The Situation Has Never Been This Bad": The Fall of PepsiCo
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
The Fashion Designer Who Became an Italian Symbol: Giorgio Armani Has Died at 91
Putin Celebrates ‘Unprecedentedly High’ Ties with China as Gazprom Seals Power of Siberia-2 Deal
China Unveils New Weapons in Grand Military Parade as Xi Hosts Putin and Kim
Queen Camilla’s Teenage Courage: Fended Off Attempted Assault on London Train, New Biography Reveals
Scottish Brothers Set Record in Historic Pacific Row
Rapper Cardi B Cleared of Liability in Los Angeles Civil Assault Trial
Google Avoids Break-Up in U.S. Antitrust Case as Stocks Rise
Couple celebrates 80th wedding anniversary at assisted living facility in Lancaster
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
The White House on LinkedIn Has Changed Their Profile Picture to Donald Trump
"Insulted the Prophet Muhammad": Woman Burned Alive by Angry Mob in Niger State, Nigeria
Trump Responds to Death Rumors – Announces 'Missile City'
Court of Appeal Allows Asylum Seekers to Remain at Essex Hotel Amid Local Tax Boycott Threats
Germany in Turmoil: Ukrainian Teenage Girl Pushed to Death by Illegal Iraqi Migrant
United Krack down on human rights: Graham Linehan Arrested at Heathrow Over Three X Posts, Hospitalised, Released on Bail with Posting Ban
Asian and Middle Eastern Investors Avoid US Markets
Ray Dalio Warns of US Shift to Autocracy
×