It's appalling and yes, there is a gender pay gap but I honestly can't get too worked up about it when they're all on such ridiculous sums and it just underlines how unequal our society is. This list after the Grenfell fire and subsequent public discussion about firefighter pay. It's shameful. The talk about a market is rubbish - we always hear how many out of work actors and journalists there are. They could find equally talented people for a fraction of the cost. I for one am sick of seeing the same faces all the time. Their self serving justifications for why they're all worth so much just don't make sense (particularly when you have equally popular presenters on such different sums, albeit all well paid in very nice jobs, but I'd be inclined to see if Clare Balding would take over Lineker's job - she's so much better value for money!)
I have a friend who is a university lecturer,she is one of the top experts in her field in the world, but her pay is less than 60k. I asked her why not more (given her stature I thought it would be more). She said that there is a pay scale set and agreed across the sector and when she'd asked why pay wasn't higher the answer was always that the line of people wanting her job is very long - maybe true, but surely that's true of media jobs too? I really think the line of people wanting these presenting jobs who can do it must be far greater than the line of people qualified (to PhD level) in a very specialised academic subject? I'm not saying my lecturer friend is worth more, rather that these presenters are worth less, and all the "reasons" for such high pay don't stack up.