The BBC has confirmed that some of its best-paid male presenters have agreed to take salary cuts after the row about equal pay at the broadcaster.

John Humphrys, Jeremy Vine, Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, Nick Robinson and Jon Sopel have all agreed to lower salaries, the corporation said.

Humphrys, who received between £600,000 and £649,999 last year for presenting BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and Mastermind, said it was his decision to take a pay cut, adding: “I’m not exactly on the breadline.” The veteran broadcaster’s pay has been reduced to about £250,000-£300,000.

His comments came after the BBC made multiple changes to an online story reporting the names of the presenters.

The broadcaster initially ran a story on its website and in radio news bulletins that Humphrys, Vine, Edwards and Sopel, the BBC’s North America editor, had agreed to take pay cuts. The story was followed up by a range of media organisations, including the Press Association.

Tory minister declines John Humphrys interview over pay comments Read more

However, at about 9am, the BBC removed the four men’s names from the article and changed the headline to “Some BBC male presenters agree pay cut”. The story was then updated again to reintroduce their names, but with significant caveats. It said Vine, Humphrys and Edwards had agreed to reductions “either formally or in principle” and attributed this statement to Amol Rajan, the BBC’s media editor.

The changes are understood to have taken place after concerns were raised at the BBC’s morning news meeting.

Humphrys, 74, said on Friday: “It was my decision and it’s the third [time] and they have been volunteered in each case.

“The BBC is in a very, very different position from what it was all those years ago when I was, like many other people in the BBC, having money pretty much thrust upon us, because there was loads of money in the BBC ...

“There was no shortage of cash. There is a shortage of cash. And it seems to me – and I thought this before the salary disclosures last year but the salary disclosures reinforced the idea – that some of us were earning much more than others.”

He said his Today salary had been “exaggerated” when it was made public because of earnings from Mastermind “but it was clearly larger by a margin than anybody else’s on the programme. That’s really the reason for wanting to reduce it.”

Humphrys said: “I’ve been at the BBC for an awfully long time and I’ve been paid very well and I’m not exactly on the breadline.” Asked if it would make a difference to his day-to-day life, he said: “I don’t think I’ll be selling matches in the street ... I’m being facetious. I’ve been very well paid for a very long time.”

Humphrys said he did not think the controversy over the gender pay gap at the corporation, which led to the BBC’s China editor, Carrie Gracie, resigning in protest, would leave lasting wounds to its reputation.

“I think it will blow over. These things always do,” he said. “There will be a bit of pain and some anguish. But in the end – we are seeing it already – other people are negotiating ... ”

The BBC confirmed that Robinson, Humphrys’ Today programme colleague, had also taken a salary cut.

“We are very grateful to Huw Edwards, Nicky Campbell, John Humphrys, Jon Sopel, Nick Robinson, and Jeremy Vine, who have agreed that their pay will now be reduced,” it said.

“These are great journalists and presenters, who have a real connection with the audience. We are proud to have them working at the BBC. The final details of some of these changes are still being discussed, and there are further conversations that the BBC will have with others in due course.”

The BBC Radio 2 host Vine, who was one of the highest-paid stars, earning £700,000-£749,999, told BBC News he had no difficulty accepting the pay cut.

“I think it all needs to be sorted out and I support my female colleagues who have rightly said that they should be paid the same when they are doing the same job,” he said. “It is just a no-brainer, so it wasn’t a problem for me to accept one.”

Campbell, BBC 5 Live’s Breakfast host, who earned between £400,000 and £449,999 last year, confirmed on air that he was taking a reduction. “It’s all very civilised and collegiate,” he said.

The publication of the BBC’s pay list last year showed two-thirds of the best-paid, on-air presenters were men and that some male staff may have been receiving more than women for in effect doing the same job.

The Guardian revealed on Thursday that the sports minister Tracey Crouch refused to be interviewed on Today after Humphrys made light of Gracie’s fight for equal pay.

Q&A How does BBC pay compare to its competitors? Show Hide The reason the BBC was told to publish the list of top earners was to demonstrate whether it is delivering value for money - in other words, whether it pays in line with the market. Given that no other broadcaster publishes the pay of its stars this is difficult to prove, but Tony Hall, the director general, insists the BBC aims to pay people at a discount to the market while Gary Lineker, one of the top earners, insists he has been offered more lucrative deals to leave. One publicly available pay deal is for Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, who gets £1.5m a year - which would put him second on the BBC’s list behind Chris Evans.

In a leaked on-air recording, Humphrys joked about Gracie’s warnings over the gender pay gap at the BBC, telling Sopel: “Oh dear God. She’s actually suggested that you should lose money – you know that don’t you?”

A spokesman for Theresa May, asked about the pay cuts, said: “It’s rightly a matter for the BBC to set their own pay. What the prime minister is determined to ensure is that people are paid equally for the work they do. Any moves for the BBC to continue to take that seriously would be welcomed.”

The corporation is due to publish a report by the accountancy company PricewaterhouseCoopers about the pay structure for its on-air stars.

Gracie and Tony Hall, the BBC director general, are to give evidence before the digital, culture, media and sport select committee next Wednesday.

On Friday, the chairman of the committee, Damian Collins, said that while it was “admirable” that the presenters wanted to show solidarity with their female colleagues by taking a pay cut, “it doesn’t address the fundamental issues of pay inequality that Carrie Gracie and others have raised”.