[DTV]

They already are chief presenters - it wouldn’t be a promotion.

None of them were on the top pay grade for either BBC World News or BBC News channel presenters pre-merger, with none even earning enough to feature on the BBC's pay disclosure list. Even if they were given the title during the BBC's weird 'everybody's a chief presenter' phase, that wouldn't be indicative of being in line with the current position - which is substantively different to the roles that the sidelined five presenters had pre-merger. You're right that the BBC will have to keep them on their current terms or make them redundant, but their 'current' terms just aren't anything like that of the actual chief presenters - not in terms of pay, seniority or work schedule.