In September last, the British government published details of the BBC’s “Royal Charter”, setting out the rules and regulations under which the public service broadcaster operates, and requiring that the pay package for those of its media stars who earned over £150,000 (₹1.25 crore) a year to be published in full. As the BBC contested the move, warning it would lead to an uneven playing field, leaving it vulnerable to the poaching of talent by other broadcasters, the government said it “wants a BBC that is as open and transparent as possible”.

This issue has proved far from the broadcaster’s main worry since the details of the pay packages were unveiled by it last week, revealing a shockingly wide gender pay gap that caught many, including the BBC’s own employees, off guard. Just a third of its top talent earning over that threshold (96 individuals) were women, with the list revealing striking differences in the pay between co-presenters on the same shows.

The controversy has showed little signs of dying down, as the management sought to diffuse the situation with promises to “sort the pay gap by 2020”, and noting that the BBC’s pay gap between women and men was 10% against the national average (for full and part time workers) of 18%. Last week, over 40 of the BBC’s top presenters published an open letter calling on the organisation to “act now”. “The BBC has known about the pay disparity for years,” wrote the journalists, including the popular sports journalist Clare Balding. Ms. Balding told the Financial Times this week that they were pushing for “equal” but not necessarily higher pay”, warning against women being treated as “discount items”.

Wider message

However, others are hopeful it can send a wider message to Britain. “The BBC’s revelation captures the public imagination, blowing apart the idea that the gender gap is a feminist myth that wilfully ignores the ‘choices’ that women make... no amount of experience, age mentoring, childlessness, leaning in or speaking would have changed the outcome of Wednesday’s report,” said the Women’s Equality Party, set up by two journalists in 2015, amid frustration on progress in achieving gender equality. “I think the general public doesn’t realise the extent of the pay gap,” one of its parliamentary candidates, Harini Iyengar, told The Hindu during the British general election campaign earlier this summer.

It has also triggered wider questions. Just 11% of the BBC’s top 96 earners were black and minority ethnic employees, with not a single man or woman in the top 10. Others have sought to focus on inequalities within the organisation. Shortly after the figures were published, it emerged that over 2,000 members of staff earned less than £20,000 a year or a 100th of what its top stars were earning, and management attempts to explain it in terms of market demand have held little weight, feeding into the debate in Britain (and which has gained prominence politically under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party) on equality and pay. Mr. Corbyn had previously suggested introducing a cap on the pay ratio that organisations were able to have between its top and bottom earners.

The controversy has refocussed the debate on whether Britain is doing enough to tackle the pay gap. By next April, companies with over 250 employees will be obliged to publish details of their gender pay gap, though a recent survey found that few had begun to gather data comprehensively and few believed it would spur change. With the storm of questions around the BBC’s latest revelations, that scepticism looks rather misplaced.

(Vidya Ram works for The Hindu and is based in London)