ITV's Bradby questions Marr's BBC salary

ITV political editor Tom Bradby has questioned the reported salary of around £600,000 being paid to BBC presenter Andrew Marr, arguing that "no-one in ITV News is paid anything like this".

Bradby's comments stem from the leaking of Marr's pay slip after it was mistakenly left in a BBC colleague's pigeonhole. The slip revealed that Marr received net monthly pay of around £27,000 for presenting The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One, Radio 4's Start the Week and various TV documentaries.

In a message on Twitter, Bradby wrote: "I like [Marr] a lot, think he words (sic) hard and is very smart, but £600,000? Seems a lot.

"No-one in ITV News is paid anything like this, so where is the market for all these BBC figures being paid such vast sums? I mean, who else will employ them at that level?"

Bradby decided to comment on Marr's pay packet after noticing a gradual erosion of parity between the BBC and ITV news teams over the last decade.

He wrote: "During the first 10 years I worked for [ITV News producer] ITN, there used to be a much greater sense of parity between the BBC and us. But over the last 10, that has gradually disappeared. It's really something when a commercial broadcaster struggles to compete against one funded by millions of people on very modest wages."

In a subsequent message, Bradby tweeted: "No, I am not jealous. I get perfectly well paid. I have just really noticed a disparity opening up over the last ten years or so."

Bradby claimed that the BBC has become an "internal market", in which stars compared salaries to each other rather than the external market.

He also estimated that Sky's political editor Adam Boulton only earns around £400,000 a year, despite being "by far and away the biggest name on Sky News".

Last summer, the BBC Trust ordered the corporation to publish more details about its biggest earners, but stopped short of revealing how much they are individually paid.

In a statement issued to The Guardian, a BBC Trust spokesman said: "Salaries of individual presenters are entirely a matter for the BBC executive, although the Trust has been clear that the BBC should look to reduce its overall talent spend, with a particular focus on the highest earners. The BBC has been responding to that."