Career paths

Over the last five years, the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 has produced, on average, the same weekly reach as the Today Programme on Radio 4 - close to 13% of all adults aged 15 and over. Jeremy, now 54, took over full time from Jimmy Young in 2002, with the help of his agent, Alex Armitage of the Noel Gay organisation.

So in 2008, when Sir Terry Wogan stepped down from Points of View, Jeremy was pleased to take over, calling it "a prime slice of BBC real estate".  We don't know what Sir Terry was paid, but he got £800k a year for Wake Up to Wogan - a daily rate of around £4k, with good holidays.

It was probably reasonable to think that Jeremy would bring a little sparkle to PoV; the producers were so keen they were ready to make the show in London, from their Birmingham base.  In 2008, the DG was Mark Thompson. It was peak salary time for senior managers and presenters, and clearly, at £3k a show, Mr Armitage struck a very good deal for his client for PoV (though it may have been less than Wogan got); the BBC1 channel controller was Jay Hunt.

In 2008, Samira Ahmed, now 51, was presenting Channel 4 News, largely fronting the 'rest of the news' with a more senior co-host, Jon Snow. How did she miss out ?