It’s just over a year since the chunky gender pay gap was revealed at the BBC, an embarrassing spectacle that left staff feeling undervalued and the public wondering whether they could be refunded the £750,000 they had paid for Jeremy Vine, or at least get some store credit. We could get a whole channel of Jed Mercurio characters just saying “Yes, sarge” for that price.

The corporation’s response has basically been to say: “Yes, OK, we will fix things but also give us a break. It’s nobody’s fault that almost every high-profile job has been given to a bloke and you’re just going to have to be patient until these overpaid men leave at a time of their choosing.”

Now the corporation is finally getting a chance to re-tip things, with some of its biggest stars – David Dimbleby, Chris Evans, Eddie Mair and Radio 1’s hip-hop host Charlie Sloth – having all announced that they are leaving their jobs.

Evans gives the BBC the greatest opportunity to redress the balance. He is currently the Beeb’s highest-paid star, although his huge listenership made him virtually impossible to get rid of. Then last month, he shocked fans by announcing he was leaving the BBC to take the breakfast job at Virgin Radio.

The original Virgin Radio was launched in the 90s, an era before media diversity awareness when having a radio station play only records by white men in trenchcoats was seen as a sound music policy. In the 90s, Evans twice left the BBC to take up roles at Virgin, the second time launching his new breakfast show as a spoiler on the same day as a young Zoë Ball took over the Radio 1 Breakfast show. Evans, in his boozing 90s peak, then decided to purchase the station, later selling it for £80m before promptly being fired. The station changing its name to Absolute Radio.

This new Virgin Radio is an entirely different and rather less chaste operation. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK and is something of a “Let me show you what you’ve been missing, Daddy” project for Rebekah Brooks, after her plans for global media domination were set slightly off-course by that pesky phone hacking scandal. Brooks took responsibility for a suite of radio stations in 2016, but so far listener figures have been low and her hiring strategy could be described as “nightmare sex party”, with shows already given to Julia-Hartley Brewer, Matthew Wright and George Galloway.

Clearly star power was needed, and so Brooks managed to woo back Evans. As soon as it was announced he was taking over, the Sun, which up to that point had described Evans as an overpaid “Top Gear flop” and run stories about his marriage – plus, in the past year, photos of him scratching his arse and peeing by the side of the road – suddenly had nothing but nice things to say. Evans and his wife are now “delighted parents”, the only things they are flashing are “beaming smiles”. What a difference a huge new radio contract makes.

The question then became who would take over from Evans on the Radio 2 show. Listeners seemed almost universally to want Sara Cox. Evans himself had practically anointed her on air, saying his “money is on Sara”. Some bookies stopped taking bets.

But the Sun had different ideas, announcing two weeks ago that it was not Cox’s but Ball’s job if she wanted it. How could the paper possibly have had access to these sensitive negotiations?

This week, Evans confirmed the news, although – seemingly aware the announcement was now a damp squib – he pretty much gave the game away an hour before, when a trailer mentioned Ball’s ex-husband Fatboy Slim and Evans commented: “They’re taking over.”

It all had a ring of the past about it, as if Radio 2 is really Radio 1 plus 20 years and a stint depping on The One Show. The announcement appeared genial, with Ball joking that she “couldn’t remember” how long she was on Radio 1 because it was the 90s. But if you listened closely you could hear the gritting of teeth, as with a maid of honour giving a speech about a groom she loathes. The pair joked about what date Ball would be starting; “January the somethingth” Evans joshed, but both acknowledged they would be keeping their exact timings secret, with Evans no doubt wanting to act as a spoiler, just as he had in the 90s.

Cox also used her show to congratulate Ball, although her choice of opening track, Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me, hinted at a little disappointment.

Having had its thunder stolen by the tabloids on that big announcement, the Beeb is trying out a more leak-proof strategy with Question Time, holding secret auditions with potential candidates to replace Dimbleby. Reports claim it will film pilots with each host, including a studio audience and low-ranking politicians, to see who is up to the job. Mishal Husain, Kirsty Wark and Nick Robinson are among the contestants playing what one BBC insider called Question Time Idol – although considering the pressure on the BBC to achieve gender pay balance, Robinson’s pilot must feel more like an episode of Pointless.

Wark has long been the favourite to take over, although a pointed comment from an insider that the channel is looking for someone with “general BBC One appeal” seems to cast that into doubt, as if viewers might disappear in a puff of smoke if they see someone too unlike Matt Baker.

What of the others? Well, Eddie Mair left Radio 4’s PM for LBC, but Evan Davis has been announced as the replacement, so that’s just a man-for-man swap. Sloth’s announcement was perhaps the biggest shock, considering he has been groomed by Radio 1 for more than a decade. He was handed not only Tim Westwood’s rap show but a new weeknight show in which he became the only DJ on the station who is allowed to swear and talk openly about sex (in a way that normal people do, rather than a “Please call the BBC Action Line if you get an erection” kind of way). Sloth hasn’t announced where he is going, but you imagine it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. There’s no word on his replacement, but if it’s a woman, it is worth watching to see not only if she gets the same pay packet, but whether she is allowed the same freedom to talk about “mudpies” and to play games such as “balls in your mouth”.

It has actually worked out well for the bosses that so many men have decided to leave at the same time, but then hasn’t that always been the way? The BBC is like a loving, supportive but slightly unglamorous girlfriend. Blokes always leave once they get famous, thinking they will find something better if they play the field. By the time they realise they have made a huge mistake, she has moved on to someone new.