[THIS ARTICLE IS SUBJECT TO A LEGAL COMPLAINT]
Having outraged the nation, been suspended from his job and wounded the BBC,
Jonathan Ross did what any self-regarding celebrity paid £6m of public money
would do - he held a monster party on Friday night.
The lavish Hallowe’en bash which he holds every year for children at his north
London home drew a host of stars to join in the fun. Jack Dee, the comedian,
arrived dressed as the Riddler from Batman in a green suit and bowler hat,
while Alan Carr turned up disguised as Dracula.
“It was supposed to be Dracula, but it turned out more like Jack the Ripper,”
said Carr, perhaps mindful of the carnage wreaked last week by the scandal
over the crude and deeply offensive telephone calls made by Ross and Russell
Brand, the comedian, that were broadcast on Radio 2.
In the calls the pair referred to Brand sleeping with the granddaughter of
Andrew Sachs, who played Manuel in the Fawlty Towers comedy series, and
“joked” that the revelation could lead the 78-year-old actor to commit
suicide.
If Ross was contrite, there was no evidence on Friday. Others at his party
included Kirsty Young and Claudia Winkleman, the television presenters, as
well as Chris Eubank, the former boxing champion.
They were among the hundreds of guests invited to Ross’s house which was
decked out with giant wooden gates, orange and red lighting, a smoke machine
and other paraphernalia. Stilt walkers and dwarfs dressed as aliens
entertained guests and men in white forensic suits and gas masks acted as
security guards.
Money is not much of a problem for Ross, whose three-year deal with the BBC is
worth £18m, courtesy of television licence payers. He seems to find it
amusing that viewers, whether they like his shows or not, have to pay for
his antics.
In a recent interview with Daniel Craig, the James Bond star, he offered Craig
a birthday present and said: “I hasten to add we used my money, not licence
payers’ money, although essentially it’s the same thing.” After that show -
and well before the row over the telephone calls to Sachs - viewers were
splenetic. “All he does with his guests is make naff sexual innuendos, fawn,
then end the interview,” wrote one contributor on digitalspy.com, a popular
internet forum.
“He’s just a crap interviewer and shouldn’t have a talk show,” wrote another.
“Ross appeals to the type of people who think Chris Moyles [a Radio 1
presenter] is a comic genius, ie morons.” A contributor who defended Ross
pointed out that nobody was forced to watch him so why all the fuss? The
response was swift: “Because it’s our licence fee being p*ssed away on a
dolt.”
That encapsulated the problem that the Ross scandal has highlighted at the BBC
which seems more concerned about maintaining its state funding than any
standards of taste.
John Whittingdale, the Tory chairman of the Commons culture, media and sport
select committee, took up the point. “The BBC is desperate to preserve the
licence fee,” he said. “In their desire to win over a younger audience, they
have lost sight of the need not to offend and to remain within acceptable
boundaries [of taste] for the rest of the population.”
Early next year ministers will decide how public service broadcasting should
be funded after 2012, when the analogue signal is finally switched off. One
option being considered is breaking up the BBC’s monopoly over the licence
fee and giving some of that money to other broadcasters.
Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, is understood to be particularly
concerned about the seven-figure salaries that the BBC lavishes on its
stars.
Fearing for its cash, the BBC belatedly woke up last week. Brand quit. Ross
was suspended. Lesley Douglas, the controller of Radio 2, resigned.
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said the prank telephone calls
to Sachs represented “an abuse of privilege given to the BBC to broadcast to
its audiences”. He and Mark Thompson, the director-general, have ordered a
review into where “appropriate boundaries of taste and standards should lie”
across the corporation’s output, as well as demanding tougher editorial
controls.
The stakes are high. The lax, libertine culture that has eroded standards at
the BBC could yet cost it far more than Ross’s £6m a year if it affects the
level of the licence fee.
With his unruly bird’s nest hair-do, unshaven face and tight trousers Brand,
33, appears the wilder of the two presenters who sent Auntie into meltdown.
Frequently drunk and high on drugs, the stand-up comic was sacked as an MTV
presenter in 2001 after he turned up for work the day after the 9/11 attacks
dressed as Osama Bin Laden. A stint at Xfm, the indie rock radio station,
was curtailed when he read pornographic material live on air.
He claims to have slept with 2,000 women and, at one point, had to check into
an American clinic to be treated for what he calls “sexy addiction”. His
conquests have included Kate Moss, the supermodel, and - we now know -
Georgina Baillie, the 23-year-old granddaughter of Sachs.
Baillie is a member of a burlesque dance troupe called the Satanic Sluts and,
it was alleged last week, is a “Miss Whiplash” dominatrix. She has
apparently offered clients £110-an-hour sessions under the name of Mistress
Voluptua. The BBC chose to pay Brand £200,000 to give his audiences and
guests such as Sachs a lashing.
Giving Brand his own radio show on the BBC - as Douglas did - was always going
to be a high-risk strategy.
“When his hire was announced, I sent an email of protest to her [Douglas], the
only one I have sent in my entire career,” said Paul Gambaccini, a veteran
disc jockey who has a show on Radio 2. “When you pick up a timebomb, one day
it will explode because that’s what timebombs do.”
Brand’s show pulled in only 380,000 listeners, although thousands more are
thought to have downloaded a podcast version of it.
His fee may sound high for a DJ, but it is small beer compared with other BBC
salaries. Moyles, the self-styled “saviour” of Radio 1, reportedly earns
£630,000, Jeremy Paxman is said to get £1m for presenting Newsnight and
University Challenge, while Graham Norton is reportedly on a two-year
contract worth £5m.
Ross is in a league of his own. He first came to prominence in 1987 on The
Last Resort, a late night Channel 4 programme. His fortunes fluctuated
throughout the next decade - at one point he was making advertisements for
Pizza Hut - until he landed a Saturday morning slot on Radio 2 in 1999 and
took over from Barry Norman on the BBC’s Film show.
Two years later Ross launched his Friday night chat show on BBC1, made by his
own production company Hot Sauce. Its success - pulling in about 4m viewers
- culminated in the BBC offering him an £18m deal in 2006.
The corporation maintained that commercial broadcasters were willing to pay
Ross more, but this did little to quell resentment among other BBC staff,
particularly those working in news and current affairs. He alienated
colleagues when he boasted last year: “I’m worth 1,000 BBC journalists.”
Yesterday Greg Dyke, former director-general of the BBC, condemned the deal,
saying: “There is always a price that is too high for a publicly funded
organisation to pay.” Dyke said the BBC should have refused Ross’s demands
and let him take his chances elsewhere.
Whittingdale agreed. “The BBC’s argument for paying Jonathan Ross £18m was
that this was the market rate,” he said. “But why does the BBC feel the need
to be in the market in the first place?”
Some industry experts believe that Gordon Brown, then chancellor, had balked
at the size of Ross’s pay packet, leading in part to the BBC being given £2
billion less than it wanted during the last licence fee settlement.
The antics of other BBC presenters may also have tipped the balance. In June
2006 Moyles was criticised for referring to women as “dirty whores” and
imploring female listeners to send him text messages about whether they
urinated in the shower. In the same month Ross asked David Cameron, the Tory
leader, if he had ever fantasised about Margaret Thatcher: “Did you or did
you not have a w*** thinking about Thatcher?”
The BBC did not investigate the incident but Ofcom, the media regulator,
received 251 complaints condemning Ross’s questioning as “vulgar,
disrespectful and unfair”.
The lack of censure at the time seemed to give Ross the green light for even
more outrageous behaviour. In April this year Gwyneth Paltrow, the actress,
was left cringing after Ross told her on his show: “If you want to have sex,
I’ll phone my wife. If she gave me permission, I would f*** you, yes.
Because, you know what, you’re gagging for it.” Others charge Ross with
hypocrisy. While he is quick to lay into the personal lives of his guests,
he is fiercely protective of his own privacy. He frequently resorts to
lawyers, especially when his family is involved.
In his new book, Why Do I Say These Things?, Ross expresses his disdain for
tabloid “kiss and tell” stories. “I always feel very sorry for both the
people doing the telling and the individuals being told on, not to mention a
little queasy thinking about the journalists poking and prodding away to get
hold of the more salacious titbits for their Sunday morning audience,” he
writes.
But he had no such qualms about making his offensive and deeply personal
telephone calls to Sachs.
Brand’s producers asked Sachs to appear on his Radio 2 show earlier this
month, ostensibly to talk about Fawlty Towers and “life thereafter”, and the
ageing actor was only too happy to oblige. “I think he’s an admirer,
largely, of Russell Brand,” said Meg Poole, Sachs’s agent. It proved to be a
fateful decision.
The show, on which Ross appeared as a guest, was recorded on October 16. When
the two stars could not get hold of Sachs for a prearranged telephone
interview, they decided to leave a string of lewd messages on his voicemail.
In one, Ross shouted, “He f****d your grand-daughter!”, generating raucous
laughter in the studio. He went on to suggest that Brand had “enjoyed”
Baillie on a swing.
In a subsequent call, Brand interrupted Sachs’s anwer-phone message with the
words: “I am too busy thinking of killing myself”, and pointed out that he
“wore a condom” when he slept with Baillie. In a later call, which was not
broadcast, Ross and Brand talked about masturbating Sachs to “say sorry” to
him.
When Sachs heard the messages he indicated to Nic Philps, the show’s
25-year-old producer, that he did not want the material to be broadcast. Yet
most of the content was played on air two days later.
It remains unclear who ultimately signed off the programme for broadcast, but
it undoubtedly breached all the BBC’s compliance rules. This weekend it
emerged that Ofcom had already warned the corporation earlier this year
about its failure to fill in its compliance forms for another prerecorded
episode of the Russell Brand Show.
After Ross’s and Brand’s foul-mouthed tirade was broadcast, Poole made a “firm
complaint” on behalf of Sachs in an email to Douglas. She received no reply.
When the incident was publicised in a tabloid newspaper last Sunday, Poole
said she was called by an executive from Radio 2 who wanted to know “what it
is you are complaining about”.
“That was gobsmacking,” said Poole. The implication was that swearing and
offensive content have become so commonplace that even some of the BBC’s own
staff cannot see any wrong in them.
It was not until Monday - when Thompson was alerted to the crisis while on
holiday in Sicily - that the BBC issued an apology to Sachs. And the
broadcaster waited another two days before it decided to suspend Ross and
Brand.
By Wednesday evening Brand had quit in an apparent bid to save Ross and
Douglas. The following day, after being summoned before the BBC Trust,
Thompson decided to axe all of Ross’s shows for the next 12 weeks - a move
that will cost Ross about £1.4m. But that is a mere “slap on the wrist”,
according to one BBC news presenter.
Meanwhile, Douglas, who is credited with transforming Radio 2 into Britain’s
most popular station by wooing listeners in their thirties, resigned because
“the events of the last two weeks happened on my watch”. Last night the BBC
refused to comment on why Douglas had failed to respond to Sachs’s original
complaint, claiming the issue formed part of its inquiry.
Sir Terry Wogan, who presents Radio 2’s breakfast show, told The Sunday Times
that Douglas’s departure was “an enormous loss”, but criticised managers for
dragging their heels. “An executive decision should have been taken much
earlier,” he said. “Everybody knows, in hindsight, that both performers
should have been suspended immediately.”
Sir John Tusa, former head of the BBC World Service, was scathing about the
failure of senior executives to “get a grip” and take responsibility for the
mistake. None of them initially appeared on news reports of the scandal.
“You thought: is it really the case that these people don’t have the courage
to appear and be examined as we, the BBC, demand everybody else in a public
position should be examined?” Tusa said.
“That was a real low point.”
The events of the past fortnight are all the more telling because the BBC has
been here before. Last year Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC1, was
forced to quit after footage of the Queen purportedly storming out of a
photo-shoot was shown to journalists. It was subsequently proved to have
been faked.
Levels of trust in the broadcaster had also plummeted after a string of rigged
competitions on flagship shows, including Blue Peter, Children in Need and
Comic Relief.
As with these previous episodes, bosses have demanded more stringent controls
for programme makers. Standards of taste are set to be reexamined - a tacit
acceptance that the views of all licence fee payers must be taken into
consideration, rather than just those of people who happen to watch or
listen to a specific programme. “[There] must be a common understanding
within the BBC of what is acceptable and this must reflect widespread public
opinion,” the BBC Trust said last week.
“There are lines you don’t cross, whoever you’re appealing to,” said Will
Wyatt, a former BBC executive. “The defenders of Brand and Ross are saying
only two people complained when the programme went out, but all the people
who [subsequently] complained are the people who paid for the programme to
be made.”
Some comedians and presenters fear that a crackdown on standards will
backfire, dampening innovation. “I worry that the BBC will become more
risk-averse and will be cowed by this affair,” said Matthew Bannister, a
World Service presenter and former controller of Radio 1. “It’s not the job
of the BBC to tell people what their morals should be.”
Adrian Edmondson, the comedian, added: “Once we start passing all jokes
through endless ‘taste’ controls, we’ll cripple people’s ability to make
jokes.”
Roger Graef, a producer who has worked with Edmondson in the past, disagreed:
“There was a time when I had to argue [over scripts] with Alan Yentob f***
by f***. There are genera-tional changes but when it gets to the level we
are at now, you can’t defend it. I don’t think Ross and Brand really thought
they did anything wrong.”
Wyatt believes that sensible control can work without destroying creativity.
“It’s important that the talented entertainers the BBC uses
don’t feel they are going to be cut off at the knees,” he said. “But if
everybody thinks a bit harder about ‘is this joke appropriate?’, well,
that’s not too bad, is it?”
Ross may have suffered serious damage to his career, according to Wogan. “What
the BBC have done to Jonathan by the suspension is terminal,” Wogan said.
“It is very damaging to him and I would not be surprised if he did not come
back.”
The market that the BBC used to justify its pay deal with Ross is no longer
what it was. Rival channels face financial difficulties and are not keen to
throw huge salaries around. Some insiders suggest he may stick with his
lucrative BBC deal, but reinvent himself and his shows in a less tacky form.
The BBC, where top executives have some of the biggest pension pots in the
public sector, may find itself under pressure as ministers and opposition
MPs scrutinise its costs.
“Allowing itself to be blackmailed by an artist was a management failure,”
said Tusa. “I don’t know what he [Ross] is worth, but the management should
have been much tougher. No individual is greater than an institution like
the BBC.”
Additional reporting: Abul Taher, Helen Brooks, Stephen Jenner, Jonathan
Oliver
BBC in the doghouse
Crowngate 2007 In a trailer for a documentary, the Queen was shown
apparently storming out of a photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz, the celebrity
photographer. In fact, she had been filmed going into the shoot, and she was
not angry.
An inquiry launched by the BBC, which concluded in October 2007, criticised
the corporation for “misjudgments, poor practice and ineffective systems”.
Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC1, resigned.
Phonegate 2007 Ten BBC programmes were found to have rigged phone-ins
from viewers and listeners. Even Blue Peter, the flagship children’s
programme, had rigged a phone-in as well as an online poll to name the
show’s cat. Comic Relief and BBC Children in Need were also implicated.
Richard Marson, the Blue Peter editor, was sacked. Ric Blaxill, the head of
programmes at BBC 6 Music, resigned.
Jerry Springer, the Opera 2005 The BBC received more than 63,000
complaints both before and after the show was broadcast on BBC2. Hundreds of
protesters gathered outside BBC buildings in London, Birmingham and Cardiff.
The objections were mainly against the huge amount of foul language in the
show and its blasphemous nature. The programme portrayed Jesus as having
homosexual tendencies and contained more than 400 swear words.
The Hutton inquiry 2003-4 Lord Hutton led the inquiry into the death
of Dr David Kelly, a government weapons inspector, who committed suicide
after becoming embroiled in a row between the BBC and the government. It was
sparked when Radio 4’s Today programme accused Tony Blair’s administration
of “sexing up” a dossier claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
The Hutton report cleared Tony Blair’s government of wrongdoing, and severely
criticised the BBC for its poor editorial standards. The report said that
the original accusation, by the reporter Andrew Gilligan, was “unfounded”
and the BBC’s editorial and management processes were “defective”.
Greg Dyke, the director-general of the BBC, was forced to resign, as was
Gilligan. Many now believe his original report was correct.
The BBC approach to ‘cutting-edge’ broadcasting
THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW, BBC2
Graham Norton asked his guests Thandie Newton, the actress, and Ricky Gervais,
the comedian, to read a pretend film script in which Sarah Palin - America’s
Republican candidate for vice-president - is made out to be a porn star.
Norton (Reading the part of narrator): Sarah unbuttons her blouse.
Newton (Reading the part of Palin): Why don’t you feast your eyes on
Mama’s jugs?
Norton: She lifts her skirt and starts rubbing herself.
Newton: It’s time to drill baby. Drill hard and deep. Come on you
tree-hugging hippie. What are you waiting for? Congressional approval?
Norton: The business partner wakes up and unzips his pants. Sarah licks
her lips and grabs his p***s
October 2008
JERRY SPRINGER, THE OPERA, BBC 2
The BBC received more than 60,000 complaints over its airing of Jerry
Springer, the Opera. The show portrayed Jesus as a homosexual and contained
some 400 swear words, including c*** and f***.
January 2005
THE CATHERINE TATE SHOW, BBC 1
Viewers complained that Catherine Tate’s show was the most offensive BBC
programme ever broadcast on Christmas Day. They Catherine Tate objected to
excessive use of the F-word and characters giving each other balaclavas and
knuckledusters. Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator, received 42 complaints
and the BBC more than 100. An investigation cleared the BBC of breaching
broadcasting codes because it had provided sufficient warning.
Christmas Day 2007
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH JONATHAN ROSS, BBC 1
In an interview with the Girls Aloud singers, Ross said: All those hours spent
holding up that poster with one hand have finally paid off.
November 2007
THE CHRIS MOYLES SHOW, RADIO 1
Chris Moyles referred to women as ‘dirty whores’ on Radio 1 after asking
female listeners to send in text messages detailing whether they urinated in
the shower. Ofcom warned Radio 1 DJs as a whole they would be taken off air
or fined £250,000 if they continued to swear.
June 2006
HARRY AND PAUL SHOW, BBC 1
Harry Enfield angered the Philippines government with a sketch where a
character tried to ‘mate’ his northern friend with a Filipina maid. The
sketch caused a diplomatic row between Britain and Manila, and the skit was
described as ‘racist’ and glamorising the sexual exploitation of Filipino
workers.
October 2008
EASTENDERS, BBC 1
A homosexual scene received 145 complaints because it was broadcast before the
9pm watershed. It showed a man dressed only in his underwear lying in bed
and spanking his male lover
October 2008
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH, JONATHAN ROSS, BBC 1
In an interview with David Cameron, the Tory leader, Jonathan Ross asked if he
had a crush on Margaret Thatcher as a teenager. He asked whether Cameron
‘may have considered Thatcher in a carnal manner... as a pin-up material’.
Ross later interrupted Cameron and said: ‘But did you or did you not have a
w*** thinking about Thatcher?’ More than 250 viewers complained and Ofcom
investigated the matter, but ruled that the BBC was not in breach of causing
harm and offence.
June 2006
BIG WEEKEND GIG, RADIO 1, BBC 3, BBC HD
The BBC received complaints because Madonna, the pop singer, said f*** twice
during the show. They also received complaints when she swore at the Live
Earth concert last year.
May 2008
FRIDAY NIGHT WITH, JONATHAN ROSS, BBC 1
Ross interviewed Nicole Kidman, the actor, right, and insulted her mother.
Ross: May I welcome Nicole in her native Australian. ‘Struth Sheila,
you scrub up better than a dingo’s donger...’
Ross: [referring to Kidman’s mother] She sounds a bit of a hard bitch,
your mother. I mean that in a nice way.
Kidman: I have to leave the show now ... no, she’s divine.
Ross: That’s what I mean, like a divine bitch. I don’t mean it like
that, don’t want you to take that the wrong way. I’ll apologise to your
mother.
April 2005
Correction
Our report A watershed for laddism (November 2) included two extracts from
the television comedy programme, Mock the Week, as illustrative of material
broadcast by the BBC which was offensive and unsuitable for broadcast. In
fact, this material, which was available on an 18 certificate DVD, was never
broadcast by the BBC as it had been edited from the live recording of the
show by its producer Angst Productions Limited. We apologise to all
concerned for the error.
