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Thanks Jonathan Ross, for making BBC clean up the airwaves
Monday, 1 December 2008
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It’s an ill wind ... I am hopeful that a new sense of responsibility and concern for public taste will now emerge out of the ashes of the broadcasting standards which you and your friend, Russell Brand, set on fire.
Those of us who have grown up with respect for the BBC as an example of best practice television and radio, have had this image shaken in recent years. This was long before you uttered your first four letter word on TV. Long before you asked David Cameron on your show, whether, as a boy, he might have been sexually aroused by Margaret Thatcher. Long before you asked the respected Michael Aspel whether he had considered sex with a contestant in the Miss World contest. Long before you made even more lewd suggestions to the actress Gwyneth Paltrow last May. Or before you reached your final nadir with Russell Brand in October, which resulted in a red card and three-months suspension from our screens.
Before all of this, there had grown up a culture in the BBC whereby producers seemed to believe the more shocking, the more sexually explicit the content of their programmes could be, the higher the audience ratings.
They even seemed to believe that employing people like you, Russell Brand and a host of other fast-talking, near-the-knuckle lads and ladettes on the radio was the way to attract more young listeners.
What do we find today? That two of the most popular shows on television are Strictly Come Dancing and the X Factor, both of which give offence to virtually no one, and are capable of being watched and enjoyed by everyone from the family pet to prudish grandparents.
We find also that Russell Brand had a BBC radio audience across the UK of only 400,000 with an average age of 50 and that 40% of them were over 55 years old. So much for breaking new boundaries of broadcasting!
But back to you, Jonathan. Can I say — and I apologise if this sounds like the X Factor’s Simon Cowell speaking — I rather like you ? if it weren’t for your frequent resort to vulgarity and obscenity. Indeed, it’s a shame that you have allowed your undoubted talent to be besmirched in this way.
However, by your excesses, you have alerted the BBC belatedly to the long-standing worry which many viewers and listeners have harboured for some time now. Namely that anything goes on radio and TV; that public standards of taste can be pushed to the edge and eventually tossed into some dark canyon of offensiveness.
Now that you have been drawn up short and had the book of BBC discipline dusted down and thrown at you, I hope you return to our screens suitably chastened. I hope also that the BBC Trust’s judgment reverberates through every corridor of the Corporation, into the mind of every controller, producer and performer.
So what will be the impact on our screens? First and foremost, the days of foul, vulgar, or abusive language should be gone, especially on programmes of general entertainment, chat shows or phone-ins.
The BBC Trust has ruled that senior executives must approve and justify any derogation from this policy. That means the buck stops with them. They must know that in future their heads will roll and at the highest level, as happened to BBC Radio Two’s controller, Leslie Douglas.
Secondly, the BBC is drawing up a list of “high-risk” programmes, where content might overstep the mark. I leave it to readers to judge which programmes, if any, might qualify from Northern Ireland?
Generally, the BBC in Northern Ireland should have little to worry about. I did bang on about the Stephen Nolan radio programme earlier this year and he even had me on his show to defend myself.
He certainly takes local broadcasting standards to the edge. Doubtless he will be monitored by the BBC even more closely than before. Nationally, the BBC will need to take a long hard look at the salaries and fees it pays to people like you, Mr Ross, and revise them accordingly, I would have thought, in a very downward direction.
The millions you are being paid from what is really the public’s purse seems to me to be almost as offensive as the language you have used on your programmes.
The full BBC Trust judgment makes fascinating reading even if, somewhat ironically, the findings are accompanied by a warning of “strong language.”
That’s an understatement when one reads the transcript of what was actually said on air. As the dust settles, the BBC is taking fairly draconian measures to ensure this embarrassing debacle does not happen again.
For example, its top 150 executives were summoned to a meeting last week so that ‘the seriousness of the incident and the lessons learnt could be communicated in person to them.’
More special meetings, open to all staff, will take place before Christmas. A newsletter will go to them setting out more rigid guidelines for the future.
And that’s not all. A high-powered group has been set up “to examine where the appropriate boundaries of taste and generally accepted standards should be across all BBC output.” It will report next February and should make for interesting reading. Will the BBC become unduly cautious or censorious?
I hope not but freedom of expression must be balanced against responsibility which was sadly lacking in too many instances in the past.
I think the BBC Trust has put down a marker in its report.
We should all be grateful to you, Mr Ross for proving the worth of your fat cat salary.
Not in the way you have entertained us but in how your outrageous behaviour has finally awakened your employers to the manner in which the freedom of the airwaves can be so easily abused.
Yours Ed
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Comments
25 Comments
Its a hideous state of affairs when local eds can regurgitate a months worth of complaints and beat freedom of expression to death with a stick. But I'm terrified at the notion of what you suggest. This goes beyond the simple act of ignoring a broadcast when it upsets personal taste, a feat I'm capable of when subjected to 'unoffensive' footage of impressionable youngsters degrading themselves for the entertainment of such morally upstanding men as yourself. Your complaint reeks of a self righteous plea for censorship, an act which will stifle development and the discovery of cutting edge programming, leaving us with clean, safe programmes such as Give My Head Peace. Now we've an army of useless beaurocrats employed on 'fat cat salaries' to weed out anyone with a mind of their own we can look forward to the delight of androgenous charicatures of censorship presenting programmes as entertaining as a wet doormat. And why? For the sake of a minority of easily offended morons.
Posted by David S | 05.12.08, 23:33 GMT
We should ban all wicked rock music as well. And colour TVs. And while we're at it, any flesh higher than the ankle, wrist and lower than the chin should be covered.
The BBC should indeed cater for the lowest common denominator. But they can do it without my license fee.
Posted by mj | 04.12.08, 23:03 GMT
This letter is nothing but a thinly disguised attempt to take any youth orientated programming off the BBC. Are we to have no humour on TV and force everybody to watch Cash in the Attic?
I DO find X Factor and Strictly offensive. The singing and dancing is terrible. LIGHTEN UP!
Posted by S | 04.12.08, 12:25 GMT
If you feel that the BBC actively seek to go as far as possible in pushing the bounds of 'decency', then you know not where the real bounds lie. I do not condone R. and R., but your extrapolation of their behaviour into a symptom of general moral decline is ridiculous.
Your strange concepts of responsibility, standards, and the relationship between the 'public purse' (such a pejorative term for communal funds) and public control repulse me: You pay for the bus... the driver drives you. Similarly, one pays not only to see the pointless entertainment of Strictly (evidently your stop, sir) but also that artists may push the boundaries of society, as they have always done.
I would add that Four letter words are stigmatised for no logical reason, and reflect a victorian preoccupation with avoiding sexual discussion. I will point out that Shakespeare made many allusions to 'foul language', and Chaucer used it openly, though he may appear to refer to a quenty.
Posted by Simon | 02.12.08, 22:54 GMT
I agree with the last post (marco). What a pathetic article, put across in a pathetically sarcastic manner. To think this page was the first result for Johnathan Ross on google...
Also I can't believe the ignorance of suggesting that X-factor and Strictly Come Dancing "give offence to virtually no one, and are capable of being watched and enjoyed by everyone from the family pet to prudish grandparents." In my opinion there's nothing more offensive than a country's culture revolving around people selling out for fast fame and quick cash.
Once again the wording of an article (its bias nature) speaks volumes about it's intent - get off the bandwagon you c.....
Posted by Bill | 02.12.08, 18:21 GMT
I'm not offended in the least by Brand etc. I am offended by X Factor, Strictly, Jungle etc. I'm offended that such awful, childish fodder is fed to the masses and I'm offended that we lap it up.
Thankfully my telly has an "off" switch. Doesn't yours ?
Posted by Yip | 02.12.08, 16:26 GMT
I cant believe how pathetic a nation we are. Are people still moaning about Mr Ross and Mr Brand? It really wasn't that offensive or bad. Sexually explicit material on the BBC, where? I don't see any, show me! This is the most ridicules article I have ever read. People should get out more and enjoy themselves and stop being such puritans. I see very little wrong with the content on BBC and sacking Mr Brand was, in my opinion, cowardly. The people at BBC couldn't stand up to the people complaining who were just jumping on the band wagon and obviously hadn't heard the content of the show. Lighten up people of the UK and stop being so tight laced. We still are a nation of sexually repressed sad people. Smile and the whole world smiles with you.
Posted by marco | 02.12.08, 13:00 GMT
Very well put Ed, my sentiments entirely. As for Ross, I can't believe he will one day return to broadcasting. I for one will never watch or listen to him. I could never watch or listen to him before this most recent incident as I regarded him as the most irritating broadcaster on the planet. His Saturday morning radio shows were an instant turn off as they tied up the BBC air waves for hours with his purile childish drivel. I sincerely hope he fades into obscurity and we never hear of or see him again.
Posted by Robin Dodgson | 02.12.08, 12:50 GMT
As far as I am aware the reason that "Russell Brand had a BBC radio audience across the UK of only 400,000 with an average age of 50 and that 40% of them were over 55 years old" is because the show was broadcast late Saturday evening, when most people under 50, including Russell's many fans, are in the pub.......
Posted by Louise | 02.12.08, 11:34 GMT
Many thanks for articulating so well the views of many people such as myself. I was beginning to think that I was the only survivor of a pre-bad language age who remembers what it was like to watch and listen without the expletives, making me feel even older than I am at 61. And of course this is the crux of the matter, had we better pretend that we are enjoying this rubbish so that we do not appear to be past our sell-by date?
Posted by Ann Winch | 02.12.08, 11:22 GMT
Get over ittttt. RUSSELL BRAND IS A LEDGE!! SO IS JONATHON ROSS. leave em alone it was funny.
Posted by Lucy | 02.12.08, 11:16 GMT
Should we thank the Nazis for putting an end to anti-jewish feeling in large parts of the world?
Posted by richard Ford | 02.12.08, 10:34 GMT
Everone is entitled to an opinion and unfortunatetly many will agree with what you are saying, but if you do not want to hear offensive humour and dont like Russell Brand and many other broadcasters, surely you dont have to listen to them.
I understand that the broadcasters that I enjoy do not appeal to everyone and vice-versa and therefore that is why the BBC hire varied and multi-talented people.
I personally feel that this has been completely blown out of proportion, Iam not saying what was said is correct and right but I feel that the complaints made were by those that didnt even hear the show and only heard/read about it in the media.
Anyhoo, just wanted to add my tuppence worth and tell people to move on and get over what was really a stupid mistake for which they apologised, whether pushed to or not, and enjoy the varied broadcastings of the BBC.
Posted by Ross Walker | 02.12.08, 10:30 GMT
I rather admired Russell Brand for resigning (I prefer to think it was his belated sense of decency rather than 'abandoning the sinking ship') but Jonathan Ross not resigning says much more about him. And maybe he's not so sure his audience would stand by him if he had to 'start over'. Chicken!
Bad language and tasteless humour seems to be rife in general now and so people expect it to be acceptable on tv and radio - well, okay, put it on if you must - but just make it late at night when adults only are watching and/or listening. Bring back the watershed (you can't persuade me it's in action at the moment!) but make it 10pm when the vast majority of children should be asleep. And advise viewers beforehand even then that the content is likely to be offensive. If they don't turn off then ... that's their look out.
Posted by Joyce M | 02.12.08, 06:21 GMT
Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor do offend me, they are awful crass nonsense, I just don't watch them rather than call for them to be removed from the airwaves. If you don't like it don't watch it, I pay licence fees too and I would appreciate something that appeals to me.
Posted by Ross | 01.12.08, 21:34 GMT
Actually, mediocrity offends me more deeply than a couple ill-considered remarks by broadcast entertainers. In fact, the spectre of mediocrity looms large over contemporary Britain which used to be respected for cultural exports but now mainly consists of TV-show formats often spearheaded by the bone-headed Simon Cowell; a figure far more dangerous to contemporary Britain than couple of humorous and jumped-up pantry boys.
I do not think journalists should assume that they speak for all license payers when promoting their vision for a lowest-common-denominator BBC.
Posted by nate | 01.12.08, 21:33 GMT
Well put! Time to pull Britain out of the communications cess pit. How on earth you Brits expect children to grow up with strong moral principles when they are subjected to the bullying filth that comes out of the mouths of people like Ross, I have NO idea. Time to revamp the image!!
Posted by Glenda Thompson | 01.12.08, 21:27 GMT
I didn't even know Russell Brand had a radio show until it was axed.. shame, I would definitely have tuned in. Ponderland is hilarious.
Posted by Mary | 01.12.08, 15:07 GMT
So everything is now as it should be? No. Even if you ignore the more serious problems in the world and concentrate solely on TV; the Ross / Brand affair is nothing compared to the unwatchable, lowest-common-denominator nonsense such as Strictly Come Dancing, and Hole in the Wall that the BBC considers mainstream viewing. The trouble with TV complaints is that it tends to be the more stupid end of the bell curve who get worked up enough about a TV show to complain, and so the BBC and media have a skewed idea of what most people want to watch on a Saturday night.
Posted by Simon Stapleton | 01.12.08, 14:58 GMT
What amazes me is the number of people who, like the oft-quoted programme assistant, deemed the broadcast 'very funny'. Ross's light chastisement by the BBC Tust shows what a chasm there is between the broadcasters and the general public when it comes to matters of what is acceptable. We'll be back at the same point within two years, I should think.
Posted by cogent_one | 01.12.08, 13:35 GMT
25 Comments