Media companies gender pay gap 2017

  • 03 May 2018

Any organisation with 250 or more employees must publish and report specific figures about their gender pay gap.

Fighting for equal pay

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The gender pay gap is the difference between the average earnings of men and women, expressed relative to men's earnings. Employers must publish their gender pay gap data and a written statement on their public-facing website and report their data to government online – using the gender pay gap reporting service.

Employers are not required to publish an explanation of the gap nor publish an action plan outlining how they intend to narrow it. The gender pay gap regulations do not require employers to identify where women are doing work of equal value to men, but not being paid the same.

While theBBC first made headlines for its gender gap (mean) of 10.7 per cent (median 9.3 per cent), other companies proved they had a worse record including ITN, which produces news for ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. It revealed it pays men an average of 19.6 per cent more than women and on bonus payments the gap jumps to 77.2 per cent. The company said the pay disparity was mainly due to having more men in senior roles, with 17 of its 20 top earners being men.

Channel 4 reported a 28.6 per cent mean gender pay gap, with a 47.6 mean bonuses gap. Women make up 59 per cent of the workforce. The public-service broadcaster said it was targeting a 50:50 gender balance in the top 100 earners by 2023. Currently men make up 66 per cent of this group. Sky Television Ltd had a mean gender pay gap of 22.8 per cent (median 17. 3 per cent), a mean bonus gap of 56 per cent and in the top pay quartile 70 per cent were men.

At the leading indie company UKTV, owner of channels including Dave and Gold, the women's mean hourly rate was 17.9 per cent lower than men's (median 12.4 per cent), more than half (54 per cent) of women are in the top pay quartile and 73 per cent in the bottom and women's mean bonuses are 52 per cent lower than men's.

At Telegraph Media Group women were paid 35 per cent less than men on average. Almost three-quarters of the Telegraph's highest-paid staff are men with women making up 61.6 per cent of the bottom quartile. Men received bonuses of almost twice those paid to women on average. Chief executive Nick Hugh said he was committed to reducing the disparity to zero by 2025.The Guardian's editorial staff had a mean gap of 7.4 per cent (8.8 per cent median), the gap was wider among non-editorial staff, and 64 per cent of employees in the top half of the organisation are men (495 men compared with 284 women).

The median hourly gender pay gap for the FT's 1,400 UK staff was 19.4 per cent and the mean was 24.4 per cent. The gender pay gap for bonuses was 28.3 per cent (median} and 37.9 per cent (mean). The chapel has launched a pay survey for staff and has called on the management to have meaninglful targets to close the gap. The Express had a 17 per cent mean pay gap (19 per cent median), 39.4 per cent bonus gap and 78 per cent in the top pay quartile were men.

News UK, which includes The Times, Sunday Times, TLS, the Sun, Sun on Sunday and the organisation's commercial operation reported a mean gender pay gap of 15.2 per cent (22 per cent median). Men make up 72.3 per cent of the top pay quartile. Men were slightly more likely to get bonuses (66 per cent/60.6 per cent), but the average gender bonus gap is 11 per cent. At the Sun, the pay gap was 24.8 per cent (mean) and men occupied 83.6 per cent of the top quartile. At talkSPORT the mean gender pay gap was 15.1 per cent, with 71.4 per cent of men with the best-paid jobs.

The Evening Standard has a mean gender pay gap favouring men by 12.8 per cent. When calculated in the median, taking the middle value of all employees' hourly pay, women are ahead by 5.8 per cent. Men's bonus pay was 51 per cent higher on average. At the Mail and Metro titles, women's mean hourly rate is 19.6% lower than men's. In other words when comparing mean hourly rates, women earn 80p for every £1 that men earn (median 15.4 per cent). Fewer than a third of the best paid were women and while more women received bonuses, their mean bonus pay was 61 per cent lower than men's.

The Economist Group has revealed a mean gender pay gap of 32.5 per cent. In its top quartile for pay there are 76 per cent men and 24 per cent women. The publishers Hachette published a 30 per cent pay gap (mean) between men and women.

Publishers' gender pay audit figures
  • 03 Apr 2018
  • Publications

At Trinity Mirror, women earned 18 per cent less than men on average, with 69 per cent of the top-paid workers being men. But at its national titles, the gap was wider, 17.8 per cent (mean) and 20.7 per cent (media) with 76 per cent of the top pay quartile being occupied by men.

At Johnston Press women's mean hourly rate was 15.1 per cent lower than men's; that is women earn 85p for every £1 that men earn (median gap, 13.9 per cent). Two-thirds of those in the top quatile for pay are men. Ashley Highfield, chief executive officer said as part of the company's report: "Of our 30 editors, 13 are female and 17 are male. However, we can do much better and I want us to be better." He pledged to achieve a 50/50 gender balance in the senior leadership team within 5 years.

The NUJ condemned Newsquest, the UK's second largest regional news publisher, for not providing a company-wide figure, nor commenting on how it will close the pay differential between the sexes on its staff. Newsquest Media Group, which has the bulk of employees in the group and includes those working on the Northern Echo, Bradford Telegraph & Argus, Bolton News and Lancashire Telegraph, reports that women are paid 12 per cent less on average than men. It shows that women make up the majority (55 per cent) of the lowest paid jobs and 52 per cent of the next lowest. Women paid less than men across most regional press groups

The education magazine TES had a mean gender pay gap of 24.7 per cent with 61.8 per cent of men being in its top quartile for pay. The Press Association published a gender pay gap (mean) of 0.8 per cent, but revealed that only a third of its workforce were women, and men got the lion's share of the bonuses.

Reuters reported a mean gender pay gap of 20.23 per cent favouring men (23.6 per cent median) and a mean bonus gap of 41 per cent, with 76 per cent of men receiving a bonus payment compared to 66 per cent of women. Reuters is a division of global information and technology company Thomson Reuters, which revealed a much lower mean gender pay gap at 2.43 per cent (8.7 per cent median) but a higher bonus gap of 51 per cent. The UK gender gap figure for full-time employees is 9.1 per cent (April 2017) and the median including part-time workers is 18.4 per cent.

At Hearst UK, which has 23 brands with a reach of more than one in three women and one in four men, the women's mean hourly rate is 17.2 per cent lower than men's (median 17.2 per cent). Two-thirds of the top pay quartile are women, but men get higher bonuses.

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