Stephen Nolan: BBC NI presenter's new salary revealed

Stephen Nolan's salary puts him again among the BBC's highest earning on-air presenters

The pay of BBC presenter Stephen Nolan increased by up to £15,000 to more than £405,000 in 2020-21.

He earned between £405,000 and £409,999 from the BBC licence fee in 2020-21, the broadcaster said.

That compares to between £390,000 and £394,999 in 2019-20 - up from about £325,000 in 2018-19.

However, his published salary may vary each year depending on when he is actually paid by the BBC for programmes he has presented.

His 2020-21 salary makes him the equal-fifth best paid BBC on-air star, with a salary similar to the Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce.

The details are contained in the BBC's latest annual report for 2020-21, which gives the salaries of its top earning stars.

It sets out the pay of BBC staff and presenters who earn more than £150,000 from the licence fee in the year.

But the pay figures released by the BBC do not include payments for other programmes made by independent production companies.

Mr Nolan's pay is for presenting the Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster, The Stephen Nolan Show on BBC Radio 5 Live and Nolan Live on BBC One Northern Ireland.

BBC Northern Ireland said his published pay varied each year, depending on when payments for work completed were actually made.

It said the higher payment this year was due to a payment for a series of Nolan Live broadcast in March 2020, which had been owed from the previous financial year.

Lineker's salary down to £1.4m

His salary again puts him among the BBC's highest earning on-air presenters.

Gary Lineker was again the BBC's best-paid star but his pay from the licence fee fell to £1.36m in 2020-21 - down from about £1.75m the previous year.

Mr Lineker's pay from the BBC was mainly for presenting Match of the Day.

Zoe Ball was the best paid woman, earning about £1.13m for presenting 210 episodes of the Zoe Ball Breakfast show on BBC Radio 2.

Peter Johnston is director of BBC Northern Ireland

The report also reveals that the pay of BBC Northern Ireland director Peter Johnston remained the same as in 2019-20 after previous rises.

He earned between £195,000 and £199,999 in 2020-21.

He had previously had pay rises of about £20,000 a year in the two years up to 2019-20.

Ninety-nine senior leaders at the BBC earned more than £150,000, while 72 on-air presenters or journalists earned more than £150,000 in 2020-21.

A further 100 on-air presenters or journalists earned between £100,000 - £150,000, but their individual pay is not detailed.

However, the BBC said it had reduced spending on its top stars by 10% during the year.

The annual report estimates that the BBC earned £99m in licence fee income from Northern Ireland in 2020-21, up from £93m in 2019-20.

The BBC spent £50m of that income on dedicated Northern Ireland content across TV, radio and online.

'Dramatic fall'

However, the proportion of BBC's network television budget spent in Northern Ireland fell dramatically last year.

In 2019, 3.5% of the BBC network television budget was spent in Northern Ireland but that fell to 1.7% in 2020.

It spent £18m on network television production in 2020-21, compared to £29m in the previous year.

It is likely that restrictions on film and TV production due to Covid during part of the year are responsible for some of the in-year decrease.

The BBC has committed to spending more of its network TV budget in Northern Ireland in future in a funding partnership with NI Screen.

The BBC's income from the licence fee as a whole rose 7% to £3.75bn on 2021 from just over £3.5bn the previous year.

BBC audiences also remain strong.

In Northern Ireland, for instance, almost nine in 10 adults (88%) on average used BBC TV/iplayer, radio or online each week.

The amount of time on average adults watched the BBC on TV each week rose to about seven and a half hours, up from under seven hours in 2019-20.

The BBC nations and regions 18:30 news programmes - including BBC Newsline - also saw large increases in viewing from March 2020 onwards.

Some 53% of adults in Northern Ireland viewed BBC Newsline each week, on average, in 2020/21 compared to under half (48%) in 2019-20.

In 2020/21, across the UK, the BBC was used by 90% of adults and 80% of young adults on average per week.

There have also been record numbers of users for BBC iPlayer, BBC Sounds and BBC News online.

Requests for news on iPlayer, for example, were up by more than 85% year-on-year in 2020.

During school closures due in lockdown in January 2021 there were almost one million requests for shows on the online educational service, Bitesize Daily, per week.

Paul Mescal and Daisy Edgar-Jones star in Normal People

The BBC drama, Normal People, was also streamed more than 63m times on BBC iPlayer in 2020.

The gender pay gap at the BBC also continues to fall.

In 2020-21 the pay gap between men and women was 5.2%, down from 6.2% in 2019-20.

When the BBC first published figures in 2017, the gender pay gap stood at more than 10%.