With “the honourable exception” of Mary Beard, women are still not getting the opportunity to front the big landmark television shows, Martha Kearney has said.
Kearney, the newest member of the BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenting team, said there had been big steps forward in terms of gender equality on TV and radio but more action was needed.
On television there had been a “real and important” shift over the past 10 years where “there isn’t an assumption that women have to retire at a certain age while men carried on much, much longer”, she said.
But in a talk at the Hay literary festival in Wales, she added: “The only area where I think there may be still a gap are the big landmark television series so, with the honourable exception of Mary Beard, you don’t see as many women fronting, presenting those programmes. I don’t think you see women doing those kind of big series as much as the men do.”
Kearney acknowledged there had been a lot of shock and anger when it became clear that men were being paid much more than women at the BBC.
But she said: “We are very privileged people who earn a lot of money. If women who are strong and confident for a living … if we end up in this position, how much more difficult is it for people in other spheres of life?”
She was on stage with Sarah Sands, the former editor of the London Evening Standard, who has been the Today programme’s editor for the past year.
They were asked about the fact that John Humphrys is paid much more than his colleagues. Sands said Humphrys was one of the stars of journalism who had done his job a long time and had got his salary when the market was different.
“We are seeing male salaries come down at the BBC and I think that will happen elsewhere, keep the faith, it will happen.”
In a wide-ranging event, Kearney was asked about the Richard Madeley interview on ITV this week when he cut off the defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, live on air when he refused to answer his question.
Would she do that? “So tempted, so tempted. Would I be allowed to do that?” No, was the reply from Sands.
The incident did though shine light on a wider subject, Kearney said, and the issue of saying what you think might be changing as a result of Brexit.
“Everybody is so media trained but I think media trained in a really bad way.” Speaking to the audience, Kearney said: “You are all highly intelligent people, you know if I’m asking a question that a politician isn’t answering it, they go off into a long ramble about something completely different. Everybody knows.”
Sometimes there were good and understandable reasons politicians did not say what they thought, but she added: “In a way Brexit has completely broken all those rules and maybe that will lead to a more mature political debate for us journalists as well as politicians. If we weren’t so quick to go ‘oh it’s a split’ we might be able to have a political dialogue where people would feel they could be more honest about other areas.”
Kearney replaced Sarah Montague on the team in April; Montague moved to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme.
She recalled her first day. “I was incredibly nervous, which may seem odd because I am very experienced … but doing the Today programme is a different threshold, it is one of, if not the most, important programme the BBC produces.
“I didn’t sleep very well, I kept thinking of the things that could go terribly wrong.”
