The BBC’s £750,000 Mistake? How Its Highest-Paid Presenter Ended Up Out

The BBC paid Scott Mills as much as £749,999 in a single year, making him the corporation’s highest-paid on-air personality.

Then it dismissed him.

The extraordinary sequence is revealed in the BBC’s latest annual pay disclosures, which show that Mills received between £745,000 and £749,999 during the financial year ending in March 2026. His previous published salary had been between £355,000 and £359,999, meaning his remuneration more than doubled after he took control of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show.

It is difficult to imagine a clearer illustration of the BBC’s confused approach to money, management and accountability.

At a time when the broadcaster is warning that its funding model is unsustainable, preparing major job cuts and demanding a renewed settlement from the public, it has revealed that its most highly rewarded presenter was dismissed immediately after the financial year ended.

The central question is no longer merely whether Scott Mills was worth £750,000.

It is how the BBC could commit such a large sum of licence-fee-backed money to someone whose contract it would terminate only months later—and whether senior executives properly understood the risks surrounding one of their most prominent employees.