ITV has just made huge advancements in closing the gender pay gap

And it's about time...

The entertainment industry's gender pay gap has been brought to light this month, with the BBC's top earners and Forbes' highest paid actors and actresses being made public.

While we're not surprised by the wage gap, the extent to the disparity is pretty shocking, with the figures showing that men make up two thirds of the highest paid talent.

In fact in the top ten BBC earners, there were only three women, and if you thought that sounded bad, brace yourselves for this one – the top four male BBC presenters collectively earn £5.5 million a year whilst the top four female BBC presenters collectively earn £1,749,996.

It's fair to say that the entertainment industry has a long way to go in terms of equal pay, something that BBC director general Tony Hall promised to do for 2020.

ITV however seems to be taking action now, with news emerging this week that TV presenter Holly Willoughby has been given a whopping £200,000 pay rise to put her on the same wage as her co-presenter Philip Schofield.

It was reported that the 36-year-old was originally on a wage of £400,000, earning a third less than her male co-presenter of 11 years who was on £600,000.

The change was reportedly prompted by the presenting duo getting paid the same salary for Dancing on Ice. According to sources, ITV realised that they could not pay the pair the same amount for one project and not for another.

The pair will now earn the same wage for all TV projects that they host together.

While there's still a lot more work to be done, this is a great first step.