We now understand that the Director General is paid in excess of £800,000pa and he seemed, on the Andrew Marr Show today, to believe this is proper and in line with ‘captains of industry’. We dispute that and were amazed that someone so senior and well-paid laced his replies with so many ‘you knows’ and ‘to be honests’ that we would not have given a potential trainee the time of day had he presented himself so poorly. And this in the Communications industry! We believe that this DG is way out of his depth.

Like football managers, who have boosted their own pay packets Like football managers, who have boosted their own pay packets – and those of their support teams of camp followers – enormously by strong-arming their directors into player contracts involving ever-increasingly stupid sums, so the BBC hierarchy have used the same tactics with Ross and gang, paying them inappropriate and unnecessary amounts of taxpayers money and thereby justifying their own huge packages.
As with a major footall club so with the BBC – crowds would turn up in similar numbers with lesser stars on display and some of those lesser lights would become big stars because of the stage on which they now can play!

As we said previously it’s clear to us that Messrs Thompson, and probably Lyons too , cannot hang onto their jobs if they now terminate Ross. In a company the Board could act in the interests of the shareholders but will Tessa Jowell’s ill-advised, half-baked structure be able to do right thing by us?
We doubt it.

However we DO feel confident that one way or another Ross will not return to the BBC and the professional interviewers and presenters who have done a fine job this past week – Humphreys, Maitlis, Mair, Vine and even dear old Marr to name a few – will rejoice that their own roles in the BBC are no longer being devalued by immature numbskulls!

We believe too that the senior management will before very long follow Brand & Ross out the door.

Thank you for providing the space here for us to put across what we have found nearly everyone – old and young – are voicing in our local Essex pubs…and no doubt way beyond!

Another you might want to know is that Andrew Sach’s granddaughter has sold her story to the Sun and hired Max Clifford as her spokesperson.

They are also both fighting a battle to justify the original contract with Ross and the appointment of his own production company. (Brand, too, utilised his own company which obviously creates a conflict in content and editorial decisions)

In other words Thompson & Lyons are acting as judge and jury on their own commercial judgements and therefore compounding the original error in awarding such a costly long-term contract to an erratic performer in the first place.They know they won’t survive if they have to pay out Ross’ contract.

Interviewing Lyons this morning John Humphreys crysallised the wider problem. The Thompson/Lyons stategy is to chase a young audience in a way that alienates the bulk of viewers. This may be a suitable high-risk strategy for a commercial channel but not for the public broadcaster financed in the way it is. It is not old-fashioned to expect the BBC to set rather than follow a standard.

Both these senior executives should go and the objectives and strategy altered.

It’s pleasing to see that BBC interviewers – presumably aghast at what has happened – are not mincing words with their senior executives.

This matter is not over by a long chalk. The People are speaking.

I, like millions of other people, like Jonathan Ross. I don’t think that he is talentless or obscene. You will forgive me for saying that I think those views are somewhat unrepresentative of the public at large. There were perhaps, 18,000 – 20,000 complaints and the BBC and government and MP’s from both sides of the house all start to wade in and the net result is that I and the MILLIONS of lisence payers who watch Friday Night with Jonathan Ross will not be able to do so – Even though, as many posters to this thread have pointed out, we have paid alot of money to watch it. The persons concerned and the BBC realise the error and have apologised. End of story – It’s not as if they have committed a capital offence! If the apology is not accepted then it is a matter for those individuals, the BBC and the authorities. It should not affect my rights as a consumer (and committed capitalist! – I’m with you on the abolition of the lisence fee John) and deprive me of my friday night viewing.

The fact that politicians are so eager to cast judgement over the affair and advocate the punative steps of taking Friday Night with Jonathan Ross off the air makes me affraid that we may return to a situation where politicians try to act as our moral guardians (remember “Back to Basics”) and where a pressure group concerned with our “moral heath and fibre” with a religious agenda gets to tell the rest of us what we can and can’t watch.

STOP PRESS
We hear that Brand is about to fall on his sword…let’s hear the terms of that and, irresoective, not let Ross off the hook.

The BBC inhabits an ivory tower, run by a self perpetuating management oligarchy, funded by a tax system enforced by snooping detector vans and the criminal law. All the evidence is that it is a self-satisfied, arrogant, bureaucratic and politically biased organisation that is too comfortable in its own self centred world and impervious to external criticism. In short, we have an out of control monster on our hands. The Ross/Brand episode has served to awaken many people to voice their complaints about this state of affairs.

The chances of reform from within the BBC are slim. New forms of public service broadcasting are needed. These reforms should be funded from the existing licence fee income. Over time, that fee income should first be frozen at todays cash level and then reduced to something like 50-66% of todays levels. That should be more than enough for the publicly funded, public service element. The BBC should be required to compete for this lower share – or die.

In your opinion John, should such matters as these calls be raised in parliament? I think it is pure hypocracy for politicians to call for the two presenters involved to be sacked or to resign, given the way many politicians have done far worse and are effectively law makers, and yet choose not to resign.

John, do you feel criminal charges could come from this incident?
Do you feel this illustrates perfectly how much our society has been dumbed down recently, given the number of young people that think harrassing an old man and being rude about an old mans grandaughter is funny and entertaining?

Reply: I agree this was not funny and tells us something worrying about BBC standards. I would be surprised if criminal charges resulted. I too dislike having to stand behind all these public bodies as they fine each other. Far better to sack the offenders, and put in management who will have some proper standards. I wouldn’t pay anyone a 7 figure salary in a public broadcaster – their appearances boost their market value anyway.

Why should the left wing part of society, and the things they find funny, be catered for but not the right. Lets support balance and equality in this instance.

I wrote to the BBC to complain about the humiliation of these youngsters and received a court, dismissive reply stating that I had misunderstood the concept of ‘Fun’, the letter went on to suggest that all the children involved were volunteers and had parental approval. Nontheless, to use children in such a degrading way, with prizes for bait, fifteen minutes of fame for bait, struck me as being a gross violation of broadcasting ethics. I should like to see a Conservative government impose a ban on TV shows that degrade children, pouring custard or other substances over their heads etc. This type of thing is dumb-down TV at its worst.

On the matter of Jonothan Ross, we’ve all warned about him for years and the fact that we pay 18 million pounds of licence fee money to this foul-mouthed upstart is obscene. The BBC needs to clean up its act and we need a Conservative government to clean up standards in broadcasting.

If the ‘pub bore’ behaved like this I’d tell him to shut up or find another pub.

And when the BBC behave like this, I continue to handsomely fund these two ‘individuals’ and risk criminal prosecution myself if I decline. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, please close the place.

Mr Ross should be sacked for gross misconduct, as what he did was morally reprehensible, and I hope not because of an easy opportunity to disguise envy, over his salary, as moral outrage.

Mark our words BBC managers, unless you take action here you will look back on this incident and see it as a very long nail in the License Fee coffin.

DAY 2
Not only was tonight’s statement, by the Head of BBC Radio, late but it was totally inadequate.

The Corporation is way out of touch and here’s another candidate for the sack, along we hope with the 2 loud-mouthed phoneys and the programme producer.

They talk about millions of Ross & Brand fans and their ‘greatness as comedians’. Get real people! These are off-peak artists who broadcast to relatively small audiences. They are in no way worth the huge fees the BBC (I mean we the license fee payers) dish out, even if they WERE both great talents. Let’s look at comparative audiences in the analysis of all this and take a proper commercial as well as ethical view on their futures. We guarantee these will be short-lived if BBC management listen to their common sense, outraged audience!

To think we are paying for people like this is just sickening to me.

They have at the very least committed an act of gross misconduct. In any other business they would have been sacked.

Also increasingly open with their bias. I was amazed to learn Newsnights US election logo uses they letter O instead of the number 0.
As in USO8

I wonder what the O might represent???