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Norton remains in prime-time but there is speculation about the fate of Jonathan Ross
Graham Norton
Graham Norton accepts pay cut to stay at the BBC
Graham Norton has re-signed with the BBC in a £4m, two-year deal, an annual pay cut of £500,000 over his previous £2.5m per year.
According to the Sun, Norton's new contract began on New Year's Day and will tie him exclusively to the corporation until 2012, which, along with his BBC1 chatshow, will see him present a variety of programmes including the Bafta TV awards, Eurovision and Over The Rainbow, Andrew Lloyd Webber's reality show which searches for a Dorothy to star in The Wizard of Oz.
Last year, Norton admitted that he and other TV stars were overpaid, but said it was "rude" to have their salaries publicised. At the same time it was speculated that he would leave the BBC following failure of his Totally Saturday programme and take over Paul O'Grady's Channel 4 show.
O'Grady was reportedly on the point of walking out over the size of the pay cut proposed for himself and a budget cut of 50% for the show, and eventually left Channel 4 when his contract ran out at the end of 2009. In 2010 he will begin hosting a new Friday night prime-time chatshow on ITV1 to rival BBC1's Jonathan Ross show.
The Sun also reported that BBC executives had been in negotiations with Ross, who has offered to take a pay cut of 50%, but that director general Mark Thompson wanted an even greater reduction in his next contract, or even to ditch him altogether. His current three-year deal, believed to be worth £16.9m, runs out in June. A Sun source said: "There is a feeling that the BBC may be better off by just getting rid of him."
