Sarah Montague is in talks with the BBC about leaving Radio 4’s Today programme after 17 years as one of its presenters.
Montague is to swap roles at the BBC with Martha Kearney, the presenter of Radio 4’s lunchtime show World at One, although the deal is yet to be finalised.
The job switch comes on the back of the gender pay row at the corporation, which Montague described as “unfair” and “professionally damaging” earlier this week.
The BBC’s list of top-earning stars revealed a split between the male and female presenters on the Radio 4 show – with John Humphrys paid between £600,000 and £649,000 and Nick Robinson £250,000 to £299,999, while Mishal Husain earns less than £250,000 and Montague less than £150,000, meaning she was not on the list.
Montague has also expressed a desire to stop the early morning starts that presenting the Today programme involves and confirmed in a Radio Times interview earlier this week she did not see herself on the show in 10 years.
Today has just celebrated its 60th anniversary and asked if she would be around for the 70th anniversary, Montague initially declined to answer before saying: “I’ll tell you what, actually I won’t. I’ve done it for 17 years and that would be 27.”
The move, which was first reported by the Daily Mail, is likely to involve a pay rise for Montague, who would be the sole presenter of World at One. The BBC’s pay list showed that Kearney was paid between £200,000 and £249,999 last year.
Montague and Kearney were among the group of more than 40 high-profile BBC women who signed a letter to Tony Hall, the director general, calling for equal pay for equal jobs.
Dublin-born Kearney is a BBC veteran who joined the broadcaster in 1988. She was political editor of Newsnight between 2000 and 2007 and presented Woman’s Hour on Radio 4 between 1998 and 2007.
She moved to World at One in 2007 and has previously presented Today as a stand-in. If the swap with Montague is confirmed she will present Today alongside Humphrys, Robinson, Husain and Justin Webb.
The BBC declined to comment. Montague and Kearney have been contacted for comment.
