When Jonathan Ross picked up his OBE insignia at Buckingham Palace in 2005, the Prince of Wales marvelled that he had found time to attend, so ever-present had he become on television and radio.

So the next 12 weeks will be as much of a culture shock for him as a financial one, despite the £1.4million in unpaid salary. To soften the blow Ross has one last hosting assignment to prepare for this evening: his annual fancy dress Hallowe’en party at the Hampstead Garden Suburb home he shares with his wife, Jane, and their children, Betty, Harvey and Honey.

After that the next three months are a desert for a man used to presenting two BBC One shows (Friday Night with Jonathan Ross and Film 2008) and three hours on Radio 2 every week.

The BBC has stipulated that Ross is still under contract and therefore unable to work for anybody else during his suspension. The one exception is the British Comedy Awards, which ITV is screening. Ross has hosted them for the past 17 years. The event at the London Television Studios on December 6 is Ross’s only confirmed public appearance until the end of January.

He does have an autobiography out (presciently titled Why Do I Say These Things?) and is suddenly available for more promotional work than may have been anticipated. Other than that he will probably spend some of his time negotiating the terms of his readmission to the BBC fold. Can he, for example, still expect to be the front-man for Comic Relief next year?

Looking further ahead, ITV has not yet seized the opportunity to renew its courtship of Ross, which in 2006 prompted the BBC to raise his salary to £18 million over three years. Media experts have predicted that he may now struggle to command anything like that fee.

However, a little time for reflection may suit Ross. Twenty-two years after he bounded into the nation’s living rooms as the vivid-suited and irreverent host of The Last Resort, a Channel Four chat show he had devised himself, he is a vastly experienced operator. He has said that he does “no work” in advance for his radio programme and that his television job is “not that hard if you know what you are doing”.

He is used to leisure time, and has said that his chief priority is “to be a good dad”. Far from Ross pining for the BBC, it may be that the opposite is true. The holes that his absence have created in the BBC’s schedules are to be filled with repeats and an appearance from one of BBC radio’s safest pair of hands. Richard Allinson, a presenter for BBC Radio Oxford, will receive temporary promotion to Ross’s prime-time slot on Saturday morning.

Allinson, 50, is arguably the least controversial disc jockey in the BBC stable. He is best known for Allinson’s Albums, a syndicated programme for BBC local radio. He has previously replaced Sarah Kennedy on her 6am slot on Radio 2 and also Chris Evans.

Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, which usually receives an audience of just under four million, will be replaced by the film Speed, and in place of Film 2008 will be Wild, a nature documentary about ponies and other inoffensive fauna in the New Forest.

A spokeswoman said that the remaining slots have not yet been filled.

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