More than a fifth of the top jobs at the BBC are filled by people who were privately educated, new figures show – despite working class viewers complaints that the broadcaster is out of touch.
Some 22 per cent of the corporation’s biggest earners attended fee-paying schools, according to the data, including director-general Tim Davie, top presenter Laura Kuenssberg and royals correspondent Nicholas Witchell.
This is, by comparison, more than three times the percentage of the British population as a whole that to private school – at around seven per cent.
Pay figures from the BBC reveal that nearly a quarter of the staff earning more than £150,000, putting them well into the top tax bracket, went to private schools as children, a report claimed.
The broadcaster’s director-general Tim Davie, who is on a tidy salary of £525,000 per year, went to the Whitgift School in South London, paid for by a scholarship.
New figures show that more than a fifth of the top jobs at the BBC are filled by people who were privately educated (pictured: Director-general Tim Davie, who attended private school)
Sunday morning presenter and ex-political editor Laura Kuenssberg attended private school
Fees at the elite educational institution currently stand at as much as £43,500 per year.
The BBC’s chief content officer Charlotte Moore, who earns £425,000 a year, went to Wycombe Abbey school in Buckinghamshire, where a place will set parents back up to £40,000 annually, The Sun reports.
Sunday morning presenter and former political editor Laura Kuenssberg also attended a private school.
World affairs editor John Simpson, royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell, security correspondent Frank Gardner also all went to private schools, The Sun reported.
Earlier in December, a report by watchdog Ofcom found that the BBC’s ‘politically correct’ programmes show the broadcaster is out of touch.
Lower-income audiences increasingly prefer to use rival streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify, which offer more ‘engaging’ and ‘light-hearted’ shows, the media regulator found.
Ofcom’s report said it was felt that the BBC’s portrayal of the working class used ‘extreme stereotypes’ such as emphasising ‘criminality, drink and drug cultures’ and ‘financial hardship’.
Royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell is also a top BBC personality who attended private school
In the review, lower-income audiences said the ‘reported salaries’ of some presenters ‘contributed to a sense that the BBC is out of touch with ordinary people’, notably during a cost of living crisis.
Viewers from poorer backgrounds believed staff at the corporation earned ‘disproportionately high salaries’, adding to the sense that it is run by an ‘exclusive, upper-class group of white men’.
The BBC told The Sun that 21 per cent of its staff come from ‘low socio-economic backgrounds’.
A spokesman also said: ‘We want the BBC to be for everyone.’