Natasha Kaplinsky won't get a penny in maternity pay after falling pregnant six weeks after her debut on Five news

The new face of Channel Five news will not receive a penny in maternity pay because she was hired as a freelance.

Miss Kaplinsky, 35, became Britain's highest-paid newsreader when Five lured her from the BBC in a £1million-a-year deal.

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Her announcement that she is three months pregnant only six weeks into her new role has left her bosses "frustrated".

Channel chiefs are said to be dismayed she will be out of action so soon after starting.

Miss Kaplinsky has been credited with increasing viewers by a massive 72 per cent since she took over Five's revamped news bulletin.

Bosses will have to find a stand-in newsreader to stop ratings plummeting when she takes time off.

She is expected to take maternity leave from September and to be off for "a few months".

"Natasha is only paid when she is here," an insider said. "She will not be getting maternity pay."

Had she been on a staff contract, Miss Kaplinsky's first six weeks of maternity leave would have earned her 90 per cent of her estimated £20,000-a-week salary.

This would have given her £108,000 before the payouts were reduced to the statutory maternity rate of £112.75 a week.

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Friends say Miss Kaplinsky had no idea she was having a baby when she joined Five.

It is believed she could have discovered she was pregnant at almost the same time she started presenting the news bulletin on February 18.

An insider at Sky News, which runs Five News, admitted the situation was "deeply frustrating" for the broadcaster.

But he claimed the channel would try to capitalise on the publicity.

The source said: "This does give Five a lot of PR oomph. All the coverage about the baby being born will be grist to the mill."

Miss Kaplinsky's representatives claimed she had made no secret of her desire to have a baby with her husband of two years, Justin Bower.

She is said to have told bosses she was pregnant last week after passing the 12-week stage.

Yesterday she kept any baby bump under cover as she left her five-bedroom house in South-West London.

Dressed in black, with a red bag and red shoes, she headed to the Five News studios in west London.

Miss Kaplinsky, who presents both the 5.30pm and 7pm bulletins, smiled at photographers but refused to comment on her pregnancy.

Five's senior controller of news and current affairs Chris Shaw said: "I am genuinely delighted for her.

"Obviously we are going to have to find a stand-in but she has made it a very attractive job - so I don't think we will have a problem there.

"In the meantime we hope to carry on building on her early success."