ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

Those two idiots should neither be "hauled up" before any Parliamentary committee, nor investigated by OFCOM. They should simply be prosecuted for offences contrary to the Telecommunications Act 1984 and, on conviction, gaoled. Nobody has the right to use the telephone network to make remarks which are threatening, menacing, obscene or grossly offensive. Other offences may have been committed contrary to the Protection From Harrassment Act.

If they are gaoled, it will sent a message to the hooligans in their audience(s) that such outlandish conduct will not be tolerated from anyone.

'...serious about getting to the bottom of the Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand affair..'

I'm as interested in good comedy as I am in derailed national broadcasting standards, so kudos to you... kudos!

after the bee gees thing it took many years for Clive Anderson to get back from the wilderness after his show was axed. Given what the dumb duo did was worse than the bee gees thing should they not also spend time in the wilderness after their shows are axed?

or does ross remain as an 18 million pound joke on us?

i suppose the thought of resigning doesn't enter their head?

I agree. These two need to pay the price for failure. The so called boss who came on R4 this pm to explain the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ position would n`t impress us if running a whelk stall.

Standards need to be improved.

Cut out swearing.

Speak English.

Employ mature people.

Fire these two plus a few ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ bosses.

I don't have to watch or hear Russell Brand or Jonathan Ross, but I have to pay my licence knowing these two ignorant, unfunny idiots are getting paid extortionate amounts for being offensive in their small-minded , foul mouthed and anal-humoured ways.

Initially only 2 people complained. That is the most shocking aspect. From that it seems clear both Brand and Ross should be sacked; the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ should not continue to pander to the kind of people who apparently were not offended; they must be thoroughly trashy.

Rob Slack

Ross and co have simply got too big for their boots. Ross's language just encourages more bad behaviour; I DO NOT WANT YOU TO SPEND MY PART OF THE LICENCE FEE ON THIS OVERPAID CLEVER DICK - PLEASE DO THE RIGHT THING AND SACK HIM - which is what would happen to anyone else using the F and C word on air.

3. At 5:18pm on 28 Oct 2008, bookhimdano
i suppose the thought of resigning doesn't enter their head?

On current evidence, whatever does get brewed in the collective organ they evidently do share, I am not sure 'thought' is too high on the lost.

'Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying on air, staying on air...'

To many, the oxygen of exposure to a national audience is of some value, and way beyond the time on screen; a fact perhaps worth remembering.

Though one, sadly, often ignored by various back room 'market rate' talents employing others with the public's money.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

I very much hope that the Commons and the PM have other more important things to do sorting out the economy, than to deal with the antics of Russell Brandt and Jonathan Ross. I do not watch either of them as I think their shows are rubbish, but I do not understand what the fuss is all about. Andrew Sachs got offended by a joke message by Brandt, boasting that he has slept with Sachs's granddaughter?! The last I herd, Georgina Baillie was 23-years-old and I have not heard about she being offended. Why should we all have to listen about that for days? After all, everything was meant as a joke. OK, it got out of hand but that is no reason for the Oh-So-Morally-Elevated-British-Public to call for Brandt and Ross to be fired. All is needed is an apology and if they do not give it, then Sachs’s can leave whatever messages he wants on their answer-phones.

That certainly would be a wonderful watch.

There was once a time when the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ was an arbiter of good taste and a resource for adults and children from dysfunctional backgrounds as well as demonstrating reasonable behaviour. The latter is essential for the everyday peaceful working of society just as the law is commonly agreed.
To have two very well paid performers sink so low confirms what Mrs Thatcher said in connection with I think was a proposed reduction in the number of examining boards. She said, surprisingly, that competition drives down standards. Competition didn't help the banks and building societies either.

Its easy this one. Just sack them. There are now millions of talent-free wannabe celebs out there who could more than fill the positions of both Ross and Brand. I for one will take action by switching off or over whenever they are on. Do not underestimate the viewing public or their growing contempt and disdain, in a particularly charged economic climate, for these talentless, over-paid, arrogant lowlifes. Get rid of them, now thats what I call value for fee-payers money.

If the Commons Culture Select Committee are serious about culture, they will not waste any time with those couple of buffoons. If the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ are serious about broadcasting, they will not sack them because it would leave them free to sign for another channel. They will hold them to their contract and take them off air.

Hit them where it hurts - not the pocket, which is very well lined - but the go.

To add to my previous comment, the whole TV scene feels as if the viewer is less and less important. Speech is often accompanied by a lot of background noise, often with silly camera movements and lovely machinery such as steam trains cannot be heard for intrusive noise. Most people are able to understand a great deal more than broadcasters seem to believe and it is not elitist to wish to be spoken to reasonably grammatically. Nobody could fill the huge number of available broadcasting hours with quality programming compared with the days of 4 channels altogether that ended at midnight or thereabouts but those very long hours could be used help lift behavioural standards instead of the constant empty criticism of the yobbery that they portray every day as entertainment.

Well, I just heard it live on ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Breakfast from a fantastic counter-argument, washed (we who disagree with such as him are not... apparently), selection of media bubble humanity... Will.

Brilliant choice!

Now I am not, as he demanded, 'getting over it' and complaining to the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's pointless Complaints system about this choice of defence interviewee and the 'interviewers' abilities in dealing with his specious arguments, and reading out others that were almost as offensive. This is all OK because the grand-daughter looks dodgy?

ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ... when in a hole... stop digging!

Plus the notion...you can only have a problem or opinion with what is broadcast if you hear/see it live and then complain then... through channels???? That will make for a short 'news' channel based on finding and sharing material that is dated.

Hey, Michael,

You do politics and stuff.

As I note our heroes are now suspended, on full salary, one presumes, along with wondering who will be paying the financial 'slap' that OFCOM and/or the Trust imposes, this just into my inbox from one of those oufits that don't try and make political capital like the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ news doesn't get on its high horse with other folks'... travails...

"Politicians shouldn’t interfere with public service broadcasting

Commenting on the suspension of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand pending an investigation, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sports Secretary, Don Foster said:

β€œThe day that politicians decide who our entertainers are is a very sad day for British broadcasting.

β€œWhat Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross did was clearly unacceptable but we already have a regulatory and legal process to deal with such issues.

β€œDespite the unacceptable behaviour of Brand and Ross, it’s vital that we maintain truly independent public service broadcasting.

β€œThe entire point of having an independent media is to prevent those in power from having undue influence over what appears on our screens.

β€œThe Conservative suggestion of a Social Responsibility Contract raises huge questions about the freedom of the media and state interference.

β€œThere should be a full investigation into the editorial procedures that led to this show being broadcast, but that should be conducted by Ofcom and the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Trust and not by politicians in search of headlines.”"

He said, in a press release direct to me.

Funny old world, eh?

ENDORSEMENT (# 15)

We pay - they play.

('They' being the output-shapers of today - no doubt under some new name such as: 'Service Configuration Optimisers'.)

Public service has left the building.

It is a disgrace the way the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has handled the whole Ross/Brand affair. Mark Thompson should be getting quizzed at the highest level himself. The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's Have Your Say webpage, which is allegedly fully moderated, was allowing the inclusion of comments from the public calling for the execution of Jonathan and Russell.

Clearly the level of outrage directed at Mr Ross and Mr Brand is out of all proportion and due mostly to the fury-by-proxy that has been allowed to have free reign across all media outlets including the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ. It is obvious that the vast majority of complaints the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has received have been from people who have gone out of their way to listen to the offending material (knowing it was lewd and likely to offend them) and then complain. That is not legitimate. Only 2 complaints were received when the show was originally aired and this correlates with the argument that the targetted demographic were uninterested in the controversy.

Surely it is also fair to assume that the vast majority of complaints have come from people who never watch or listen to either Brand or Ross? It's complaining for the sake of it.

It's a pity such venom and spleen wasn't directed at the Prime Minister, Chancellor, and financial institutions recently. But the PM decided to weigh instead - and the Tories who enjoyed Ross's hospitality when it suited.

Instead a petty, lewd, controversy rules the airwaves. Nice to see the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ and the British public have their priorities straight.
Ultimately it is a shame that 'mob rule' has prevailed and those people who actually enjoy watching and listening to either personality are now penalised.

But maybe that was the real point....the fussy, staid, and repressed moral majority actually found a cause with which to put a few people in their place.

A QUESTION OF WISDOM (#19)

In 2005 I chose to attend an amateur 'stand-up' competition. The obscenity was off the scale and the direct attack on a woman in the audience eye-watering. But this was not the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ, Britain's (globally perceived) premier broadcaster.

The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ (as I constantly blog) has lost its way right across the span of broadcasting. Gimmickry in sound, vision, studio, presenter demeanour and diction - an unending litany.
(Assorted gas flames, whenever energy is mentioned and helicopter shots, in case we do not understand the word 'house'.)

The Ross/Brand debacle was just the faeces on the cake. Small wonder decent people needed prompting - even a Ross trailer doubles my reaction speed on the remote.

Sounds like 2 people actually complained about the content of the radio show and 26,998 left abusive messages about it. Hmm, wonder where they got that idea from? Nothing quite like a taste of your own medicine eh lads.

Much of the debate over Ross's and Brand's transgression has historic resonance.

The call for stricter 'rules' and 'codes' has, at various points in the past, been seen as a second-best solution. In the 1960s and 1970s, for example, the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ hoped that an instilled ethos might be sufficient to guide what, in the days of Hugh Greene and Charles Curran, might have been called 'the programme-maker's conscience'. When language offences occured, there was much internal (and external) anxiety about whether (a) staff turnover and Corporation expansion had been so great that a lack of continuity of experience in editorial guidance had arisen, with young and relatively inexperienced producers and managers promoted too quickly, and (b) that ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ staff had forgotten their own history. As always, language-and-taste anxieties are powerful lightning rods for latent worries about where the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ is going, its loss of purpose, perceived arrogance, etc.

There are other interesting parallels with the past:

1. The difference between something uttered live and something pre-recorded or pre-scripted. Here, though, there have been two positions. The Managing Director of Radio in the late-1970s, Aubrey Singer, famously told staff in a memo that he didn't mind "these words" coming out in the heat of the moment, but he would "not have people sitting down and typing them out!" On the other hand, many dramatists and producers - especially those gathered in a huge set-piece symposium on bad language held in Broadcasting House in 1988 - pointed out that it was when 'strong language' was carefully planned and considered, and intended to be used with power and purpose, that it had its greatest claim to be allowed on air. It would be difficult to argue that Brand and Ross were doing this, of course.

2. The audience reaction to outbreaks of strong language was always (a) conditioned more by subsequent newspaper coverage than by the original transmission, and (b) very conditioned by age - with older listeners expressing very different levels of distress to younger listeners.

3. The issue almost always occurs where there is a tension between the need to serve largely older audiences and the desire to secure the attention or respect of younger ones. In 1975, Stop the Week on Radio 4 reviewed an autobiography that recounted a young girl's rape. The conversation then widened to discuss virginity, penis envy and other related matters. In the ensuing outcry, the Head of Current Affairs Magazine Programmes said that the idea had been to bring a Punch magazie style of witty conversation to Radio 4, and "if programmes were structured in such a way as to not raise the eyebrows of the most conservative listener we should quickly cease to be of service to the younger listeners..."

While it is difficult to defend Ross and Brand, and while the episode also no doubt reveals an inadequate grasp in some layers of the Corporation of what ought to be the 'instilled ethos', or what public service really means, one unfortunate outcome is the unconfined joy of those (the rightwing newspapers especially) who would dearly love to cut short the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ's efforts to attract younger listeners or reach a mass audience - and who will then turn round and accuse the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ of 'losing touch' with the younger generation.

For those interested, I've written more about bad language on the radio in an article for Twentieth Century British History - downloadable as a PDF at:


David.

David Hendy,
University of Westminster.

Personally I find JR to have lost the "edge" in his programmes and that they are more in the cringeworthy category rather than edgy. The salaries of such celebrities are far too high and illustrate the lie that only high salaries attract the right kind of person to the job. Media people are role models to younger persons and as such do need to toe a line. We are seeing a variety of people in the headlines currently exhibiting a curious lack of judgement - investment bankers, politicians and media celebs - all people we look up to and normally respect, but we currently see them suddenly looking rather foolish and irresponsible. They are all the same as anyone else on the street.

I just had a bit more from the Lib Dems, who continue not to wish to make political capital out of this by issuing endless press releases on the 'affair/prank/jape/...:

'ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ must be allowed to take risks - Foster

Commenting on the resignation of the controller of ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, over the prank calls involving presenters Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, Liberal Democrat Shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don Foster said:

β€œMany people were offended by the antics of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross who have both been dealt with appropriately. But for this to lead to the loss of one of the ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ’s most talented producers is hugely disappointing.

β€œLesley Douglas has made an enormous contribution to British radio and we have still seen no evidence that she was responsible for the failings that led to the show being broadcast.

β€œThis resignation seems to have more to do with satisfying the media feeding frenzy than in working out what went wrong and ensuring it doesn’t happen again.

β€œThe ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ has the impossible task of trying to appeal to all parts of the British audience. We should all think long and hard about what will happen to many of the wonderfully innovate ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ programmes, which many of us take for granted, if producers are no longer prepared to take risks.” '

I must say in this 'job secure no matter what' public service times I am having trouble understanding the logic of this, other than to somehow make a dubious point about how tabloids operate. Maybe the Lib Dems have been on the wrong end more often than the right (apologies, if insincere, for that line)?

While I do think the bigger issue was the executive market rate bonus talent that patently did not learn lessons after the last one and will doubtless forget their next publicly-funded course within a few months, but if this lady was nowt to do with it all, why the sword fall? Made, and I presume quickly accepted?

The Lib Dems are in danger of seeming, to me at least, that they can't tell the difference between not taking risks and not doing something plain wrong... over and over...

it is a sad truth that the intellectual tradition of the uk is now found not in the government or professions but in our comedians and sadder still, the poor professionals simply don't have the wherewithall to understand humour derived from intellect