Five female BBC news presenters have been off the air, on full pay, since March 2023, when BBC News Channel merged with BBC World News and dozens of roles were axed. Since then, the broadcaster has struggled to find new roles for the five, while the axing of the presenters, all female and experienced, has become something of a PR disaster.
Now The Times reports that the broadcaster plans to give all five presenters on-screen roles again in the coming months. The five women are Martine Croxall, Karin Giannone, Geeta Guru-Murthy, Kasia Madera and Annita McVeigh – they are currently employed without job titles.
The Times quotes one insider predicting that “the BBC would perform a ‘reverse ferret’ to avoid any legal trouble with the women, who have more than 100 years of experience at the corporation between them. The paper adds that, collectively, they will have been paid hundreds of thousands of pounds over the past nine months, at a time when the BBC is seeking to cut costs.
The insider told the paper: “They’re all litigious and the National Union of Journalists will back them. Plus, the BBC is short of presenters so there are no grounds to make them redundant. And they’re all capable of doing the role. A reverse ferret is definitely the best plan.”
The coming year is expected to be expensive for BBC News, with coverage required for a forthcoming General Election, the Olympics and ongoing coverage of conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East. Such expenditure comes as the licence fee, the BBC’s main source of income, continues to be frozen at £159 a year.
