Jeremy Clarkson is estimated to have earned more than £3m from his work presenting Top Gear, making the controversial presenter easily the highest-paid BBC star – according to documents filed by commercial arm Worldwide.

His income from the motoring programme was boosted by £900,000 after it emerged that dividends from the company behind the commercial exploitation of Top Gear had lept to £9m from £6m a year ago.

BBC Worldwide owns 50% of Bedder 6 and an obscure note to its accounts disclosed that it received a £4.5m dividend in 2011/12 up from £3m a year ago – fuelled by Top Gear DVD sales and income from live shows.

Bedder 6 has not yet filed its own accounts with Companies House, but its figures for the year to 31 March 2011 showed it paid a total dividend of £5.95m – which would fit in with the £3m received by the BBC last year.

Clarkson owns 30% of the company – making his share £2.7m, up from £1.8m the year before. On top of that Clarkson has previous drawn a fee of £350,000 and is paid a separate "talent fee" from the BBC licence fee of widely believed to be just short of £500,000.

That would take his estimated income to £3.5m – and compares to an estimated £2.65m for a year before. The increases make Clarkson easily the best-paid BBC star, ahead of Graham Norton who earns a little above £2m from the licence fee and his production company So Television and Gary Lineker who earns a presenter fee from the licence fee of about £2m a year.

However, because the majority of Clarkson's pay does not come from the licence fee, he will not be included as one of the BBC's 16 stars who earn more than £500,000, let alone one of the handful – estimated at between three and six – who earn more than £1m a year.

The remainder of Bedder 6, a 20% stake, is owned by Top Gear executive producer Andy Wilman. A £9m dividend will mean he will receive £1.8m. Wilman has also previously drawn a £60,000 fee for his role on the programme.

Bedder 6 was set up to allow Clarkson to benefit from the commercialisation of Top Gear without drawing large sums from the licence fee. The growth of Top Gear has meant that the deal has proved particularly lucrative, at a time when other BBC stars have had to face pay cuts because the Corporation is cutting back on its licence fee spending.

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