Who Dares Wins presenter Nick Knowles defends £349,000 BBC salary
HE was named as one of the best paid men on the BBC with a salary of up to £349,000 a year, but after 30 years on screen Nick Knowles is comfortable justifying his pay packet.
The DIY SOS star returns to screens on Saturday night as the face of long-running quiz show Who Dares Wins for its 11th series – and says that senior broadcasters’ earnings are as justifiable as top Premier League strikers.
Nick, 55, who defied the odds by climbing to the top after growing up on a council estate in Southall, west London, admits he felt awkward having his wages revealed last year.
But he adds: “On a personal level of course it’s quite difficult. But there are proper reasons, and I think most people in the industry understand it.
“It is essentially a Premier League team paying a striker to score them 20 goals and keep them in the Premiership so that they can get another £100million — and that’s exactly what we do.
“As a TV presenter if a production company makes a series of programmes and it gets two and a half million viewers it won’t get another commission.
“If you hire a presenter that actually carries a number of viewers with them, it’ll get five and a half million viewers, it’ll get another series and they’ll get another half a million pounds worth of business – so it’s a good bit of business.
“Anybody who earns a lot takes some explaining to people that don’t, and we live in an imperfect world where somebody who sings songs for a living makes more than a heart surgeon."
The popular presenter endured a tough start to 2018 after his former wife Jessica Rose Moor made shock allegations accusing him of “emotional cruelty” in a string of now-deleted tweets.
But after starting a new relationship with marketing executive Rebecca Kearns, 25, he insists he is happy and upbeat – although stresses it is still early days for the romance.
He explains: “The start of this year was very difficult, for obvious reasons and divorce is a highly emotive and pressurised time for everyone.
“I know people expect or want me to say something negative about my ex-wife but I’m simply not going to do it - she’s the mother of my son and he remains my first priority.”
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But he admits that romance in the public eye has been tough, adding: “Romantically I’ve found it more difficult to make those choices.
“There’s a quote from the movie Excalibur, ‘Love is deaf as well as blind’. It’s much more difficult to get right.”
Nick’s quiz show returns this weekend, with contestants given the chance to pocket up to £100,000 in cash, but he insists the secret to its long-term success is finding great human interest stories from members of the public.
He says: “I’m not going to pretend this is the most complex format in the world, but it’s one of those things that you just can’t help joining in with at home.
“A lot of people have said to me that they’re about to go out and the TV is on it delays them leaving because they get hooked on a list of questions.”
He adds: “People think presenting a quiz show is just putting a shiny jacket on and off you go, but it’s not.
“One of the best things that ever happened to me was Nicholas Parsons said, ‘I like what you do, you look like you’re in charge’.
“I’m very lucky, and I’ve been able to give my family a great life, but I still always think it’s all going to end tomorrow. It’s because of where I’ve come from.”
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