Posts tagged as:

bbc

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross call Andrew Sachs

by Ambrose Heron on October 29, 2008

In case you have been on holiday over the last few days (like BBC chief Mark Thomspon) you might have missed the incredible media storm over a phone call Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross made to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

It actually went out on Brand’s Radio 2 show on Saturday 18th October (after being pre-recorded on Thursday 16th), but after the Mail on Sunday put the story on their front page all hell has broken loose with both of them getting suspended with even the Prime Minister condemning them (!).

The BBC aren’t rebroadcasting it, so if you missed it then here it is in 2 parts:

Here is their ‘viddycast’ after the show in which the commented on the call:

Although the whole thing has got out of hand, the main reason it spiralled out of control is the combination of the BBC not responding soon enough, shock amongst an older generation of licence fee payers that this kind of comedy goes on (even though it originally went out at after 10pm on a Saturday night) and a media feeding frenzy because this story has so many juicy elements that editors and hacks love (celebrity, outrage, the licence fee and even a classic TV show to boot).

Whatever you think about the original calls and reaction to them, one has to wonder why the BBC were so slow to react to a story like this.

Last night on Newsnight (the flagship current affairs show on BBC2) host Gavin Esler was in the surreal position of having a debate without a senior BBC figure. (David Elstein and comedian Nick Doody were left to discuss it - the segment appears at 26 mins into the programme, which you can watch on iPlayer)

After the trauma of the Hutton Report, the Blue Peter cat fiasco, Crowngate, not to mention the amount of time and money spent on retraining BBC journalists and producers about guidelines, you do have to ask how this pre-recorded show went out and why BBC management collectively passed the buck for 2 days whilst the story exploded in their face.

UPDATE 29/10/08: Russell Brand has now resigned and issued a statement.

> Download an MP3 of the call
> Find out more about Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross at Wikipedia
> BBC News report on the story and also have a timeline of events
> Maggie Brown of The Guardian on the affair

{ 2 comments }

BBC Inside Out: Who Killed My Son?

by Ambrose Heron on May 3, 2008

Christine Lord is the mother of Andrew, a former colleague of mine who died last year of variant CJD.

She recently featured in an edition of the BBC current affairs program Inside Out which explored her battle to find out why her son died such a tragic and unnecessary death.

You can watch it on BBC’s iPlayer here or by clicking the image below:

As someone who knew and worked with Andy over a 2 year period, a lot of this programme was deeply upsetting.

Like many others who worked with him at Talk Radio and TalkSPORT I can testify that he was a genuinely lovely guy and a real pleasure to be around.

Christine has a website called Justice for Andy which you can visit here and has also written a piece for the Inside Out site here.

N.B. As with all iPlayer shows it will only be available for a few days and to UK viewers only. Although if anyone at the BBC is reading this, is there any chance of putting it up permanently on your YouTube channel?

UPDATE 07/07/08: You can now watch the programme by clicking on this link

> iPlayer link to the programme
> Christine’s piece for the BBC Inside Out website
> Justice For Andy site

{ 1 comment }