How much does Have I Got News for You pay? An angry MP blurted the answer out on air
Have I Got News for You has been on air since 28 September 1990, and the BBC has never published what Ian Hislop and Paul Merton take home for it. The show is made by Hat Trick Productions, an independent, so the fees sit outside the BBC's annual list of top-earning talent. The number got out anyway — in the middle of a row, on camera.
On the episode broadcast on 26 April 2019, Conservative MP Johnny Mercer told Hislop to his face that he earns £20,000 for two hours' work on the programme. Hislop didn't dispute the figure. Guest presenters are on a reported flat fee of £15,000, the sum Nick Clegg declared in the Register of Members' Financial Interests after hosting in October 2016.
What set it off
David Tennant was guest host that week, with Zoe Lyons on Hislop's team and Mercer on Merton's. Hislop spent several minutes pressing Mercer on his £85,000-a-year second job retraining army veterans, at a company reportedly linked to London Capital & Finance — the failed bond firm that went into administration owing savers £236m. Mercer denied any connection.
Then he reached for the nearest available weapon.
Mercer told Hislop he was getting "£20,000 for two hours work," as reported by HuffPost UK in April 2019.
Merton's contribution: this was one for Judge Rinder. Lyons said it reminded her of Christmas dinner with her family.
The going rates
- Team captains — £20,000 an episode each, per Mercer's on-air claim in 2019.
- Guest presenters — £15,000 flat, based on Clegg's declared payment for his 6 October 2016 stint.
- Angus Deayton — reportedly £50,000 an episode before he was dropped as host in October 2002.
- Guest panellists — never published, though MPs who appear have to declare what they're paid.
At two hours in the studio per recording, Deayton's rate worked out at more than £400 a minute.
Why the BBC won't confirm any of it
The corporation's annual pay disclosure covers presenters paid directly from the licence fee above a set threshold. Hat Trick's contracts aren't in that document, which is why the most reliable figures for a show now 71 series and more than 630 episodes deep come from the Register of Members' Financial Interests and from an MP losing his patience live on BBC One.
For the record: Mercer taped that episode while suing the BBC for libel. Hislop noted on air that the trial was going to go well. Mercer said he couldn't wait.