BBC can be ‘unbearable' place to work, chairman warns

Times

15-07-2025

The BBC continues to be an 'unbearable' place to work for some staff amid ongoing examples of inappropriate behaviour and abuses of power, its chairman has warned.
In his opening statement to the BBC annual report, Samir Shah said the corporation is a 'wonderful place' for the majority of its 21,000 staff but 'there are pockets in the organisation where this is not the case'.
Shah said: 'There are still places where powerful individuals — on and off-screen — can abuse that power to make life for their colleagues unbearable.'
Shah mentioned the 'shocking revelations' about the disgraced former presenter Huw Edwards, which led to a workplace culture review that found that the BBC had an issue with a minority of 'untouchable' individuals but did not have a toxic culture overall.
'The report emphasised the importance of acting with speed, to be bolder and braver in our actions and to dial up our risk appetite in taking visible steps to stamp out unacceptable and inappropriate behaviours,' he said.
On Monday, a report into Gregg Wallace, the MasterChef presenter, substantiated 45 out of 83 allegations against him, including one incident of unwanted physical contact. It was published on the same day as an internal investigation into a BBC documentary about Gaza, which was ruled to have breached editorial guidelines by failing to provide viewers with 'critical information' that its teenage narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
Shah said that the film had 'undermined trust' in the BBC and had damaged the corporation's reputation.
'The journalistic impulse to tell such a story was a good one, but trust for our audiences is critical to the BBC. And the Gaza film undermined that trust,' he said.
Tim Davie, the director-general of the BBC, said trust in BBC News had risen year-on-year but warned that this could not be taken for granted amid a wider global crisis of confidence.
'It requires constant diligence and care. And this was a year which saw the reputation of the BBC damaged by serious failings in the making of the programme Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone,' he said.
Davie added: 'It was important that the BBC took full responsibility for those failings and apologised for them. The broader context for the BBC is the crisis of trust that is now growing both here and around the world. It is a crisis which I believe risks serious consequences for our society, our economy, and our democratic stability and security.'
Presenter pay is another controversial topic for the BBC, which collected £3.8 billion of licence fee income, up £183 million on the previous year as a result of the £10 price increase to £169.50 in April 2024.
The top pay table for last year was headed by Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball, both of whom have since left the BBC.
Lineker, the former Match of the Day host, stepped down in May after apologising for sharing an antisemitic post on social media. He was paid up to £1.35 million.
Ball saw her earnings almost halve to £520,000 for presenting 125 editions of the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show, down from £950,000 for 200 last year.
Match of the Day pundit Alan Shearer's BBC earnings leapt from £380,000 to £440,000 after his Euro 2024 duties, making him the third highest paid star.
Greg James, the Radio 1 presenter, was paid up to £430,000 for hosting 215 breakfast shows. With no major men's football tournament on the BBC this summer, James is expected to become the broadcaster's highest paid star in next year's report.