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Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row
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The Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row concerned a series of obscene voice messages that presenters Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left on the answering machine of fellow actor Andrew Sachs.
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The Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row concerned a series of obscene voice messages that presenters Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross left on the answering machine of fellow actor Andrew Sachs. It followed a BBC Radio 2 broadcast of a recorded episode of The Russell Brand Show on Saturday 18 October 2008. In the show, Brand and Ross left lewd messages on the voice mail of Sachs, including comments about Sachs's granddaughter, Georgina Baillie. The two originally called Sachs as a guest to interview on the show, and after he failed to answer the telephone, Brand and Ross left the messages on his answering machine.
After little attention, a Mail on Sunday article on 26 October 2008 about the show led to a record number of complaints and criticism of Brand, Ross and the editorial decisions of the BBC. The two presenters were criticised by a number of MPs, including Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Following the complaints, Brand and Ross were suspended from their positions at the BBC whilst both the BBC and Ofcom launched investigations. Both Brand and Lesley Douglas, Controller of Radio 2, subsequently resigned from the BBC. Ross was suspended without pay for twelve weeks on 30 October, later describing the experience as "fun".
Background
In 2007, commentator Guy Adams of The Independent had characterised Ross and Brand as two entertainers who captured the zeitgeist and who represented "the true spirit of our age". He noted that both men shared a "useful unpredictability", where "organisers of major events can rely on occasional forays into controversy to generate valuable headlines", mentioning incidents where Ross had made remarks that had later generated controversy, adverse reaction, and widespread coverage in the press, and Brand's plans to "tear it up" at the then forthcoming Brit awards that he was scheduled to host, with "controlled mayhem and danger". He warned that the fame and popularity of Ross and Brand could be a double-edged sword, warning that "displays of potty-mouthed wit can kill a career".
In a previous Russell Brand Show episode, Brand's guest co-host David Baddiel recalled having met “the Satanic Sluts”, one of whom told Baddiel that her grandfather was actor Andrew Sachs and said “Don't tell him I was here!” (at Brand's home).
Prank calls
On Thursday 16 October 2008, Sachs, best known in Britain for his portrayal of Manuel in the television comedy Fawlty Towers, had been due to be a phone-in guest on Brand's late-night radio show.
On opening the segment of the show due to feature Sachs, Brand stated "In a minute we're going to be talking to Andrew Sachs, Manuel actor. The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn't know is, I've slept with his granddaughter." After being unable to reach Sachs on his home phone, Brand and his guest fellow Radio 2 DJ Jonathan Ross left four messages on Sachs's answerphone. During the calls in question, Brand spoke of his prior sexual relationship with Sachs's granddaughter Georgina Baillie, burlesque dancer "Voluptua" with the dance group "The Satanic Sluts". Ross also shouted out "he fucked your granddaughter". Later messages included further claims of the nature of the sexual encounters, and then sung apologies to Sachs, and Brand jokingly asking to marry Baillie.
Although Brand sometimes performed his Saturday night show live, this episode was pre-recorded to fit in with Brand's other commitments, and the recording was subsequently approved for broadcast for the 18 October slot.
Complaints
Only two complaints had been received in the week after the show was aired on 18 October, to an estimated audience of 400,000 people, for Ross's use of an expletive.
On 26 October, the British Sunday newspaper The Mail on Sunday reported the phone calls a week after the show was broadcast the previous Saturday, suggesting that Brand and Ross could face prosecution for the calls, and reporting that Sachs had been "terribly hurt" by the comments. An accompanying comment piece attacked the publicly funded BBC for approving the show for broadcast, describing it as "verbal sewage", urging the police to review the transcripts of the calls and demanding a "grovelling apology" from Brand and Ross. The incident escalated into a media and political storm that, in much of the British media, eclipsed news of the global financial crisis, the U.S. Presidential election, and fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Sachs later denied he had given permission for the messages to be broadcast. The BBC originally stated that "they are not aware of any complaint by Mr Sachs", but later confirmed a complaint had been received, and apologised. Brand issued an apology for making the calls but stated it was "funny". Ofcom, the telecommunications regulator, announced its own investigation. On 28 October 2008, the BBC said that it had received 4,700 complaints, after the calls became international news. Later the same day, this number had passed 10,000. In the same afternoon, Prime Minister Gordon Brown commented, calling the incident "clearly inappropriate and unacceptable". The following day the number of complaints was said to have topped 18,000. By 2 November, the number of complaints reached 38,000. This had been countered by 890 calls demanding the reinstatement of Brand and Ross, and various petitions.
This number of complaints places the incident as the incident with the second-highest number of complaints to the BBC in recent years, second only to the broadcast of Jerry Springer: The Opera, which, because of campaigning by religious groups, garnered over 55,000 complaints to the BBC (and 8,860 complaints to Ofcom). It is also lower than the 45,000 complaints to Ofcom about Channel 4's Celebrity Big Brother racism controversy in 2007.
Reacting to the incident, Baillie said that her relationship with Brand had been brief and she now felt betrayed that he had revealed it to her grandfather; she called for both Brand and Ross to be sacked by the BBC, and stated that she and her family would be considering whether to make a formal complaint to the police. Andrew Sachs has since stated that he had no intention of making a complaint to the police or taking the matter further.
Aftermath
Actions taken by Ross, Brand, and the BBC
On 29 October 2008, the Director-General of the BBC, Mark Thompson, announced that Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross were suspended, pending the report of an investigation by Tim Davie, director of BBC audio and music. The suspension meant that for the week, Ross would not be appearing on his regular Friday Night with Jonathan Ross television show, Film 2008 with Jonathan Ross, or his Saturday daytime Radio 2 show, and similarly Brand would not be hosting his regular Saturday night Radio 2 show. Thompson called the events a "gross lapse of taste by the performers and the production team" (who had chosen to broadcast the pre-recorded show) that had angered licence payers, and offered a personal and unreserved apology to Andrew Sachs and his family. In an interview, Sachs revealed that he had received and accepted written apologies from Brand and Ross. Brand resigned from the BBC later in the day.
On the evening of 30 October it was announced that Controller of Radio 2 Lesley Douglas had tendered her resignation, which had been accepted. Her resignation letter did not address the question of whether Douglas herself had approved the pre-recorded show for transmission. On the same day, Ross was suspended without pay from all BBC shows for a period of 12 weeks. The Daily Mail estimated that this would result in his losing £1,344,000 in wages.
The BBC issued an apology over the incident on 8 November, stating that the telephone calls were "grossly offensive" and a "serious breach of editorial standards". The corporation apologized specifically to Sachs and Baillie, and also to the license fee payer. David Barber, the head of specialist music and compliance at Radio 2, resigned the evening before the formal apology. Like Douglas, he had been aware of the contents of the show, and had sanctioned the segment's broadcast.
Reactions from politicians
Fifteen MPs signed a motion in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, tabled by Labour MP Andrew Mackinlay and Conservative MP Nigel Evans, calling for Brand and Ross to no longer be funded by the licence fee (which funds the BBC).
The chairman of the House of Commons select committee on culture, media and sport, John Whittingdale, stated that an investigation by the BBC was needed, but stopped short of calling for Ross and Brand to be sacked. The chairman of the House of Lords Select Committee on Communication, Lord Fowler, in a letter to The Times (see Fowler in Further reading) stated that there were fundamental flaws in the way that the BBC was regulated and governed, and that there was "confusion all round" because two parallel bodies, the BBC Trust and Ofcom, were investigating the incident, and it was both unclear which of them the public should complain to and which of them had precedence over the other.
Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, speaking on the Radio 4 Today Programme on 30 October, also refused to say whether he thought Ross should be sacked, asserting that politicians should remain at "arm's length" from such decisions. In a speech at the London School of Economics the previous day he had criticised the decision by the BBC to broadcast the programme, which had been recorded 2 days prior to its transmission, saying that "[t]he BBC was quite wrong to take the decision to broadcast the offensive phone calls". He also demurred about calling for the resignations of anyone in BBC management, saying that "[i]t is wrong, in principle, for politicians to be calling for heads of individual broadcasting to be removed.", and criticised the BBC for not releasing the name of the person who had given the green light for the show to be broadcast.
Hunt was speaking to the LSE about socially responsible broadcasting, and stated "I do think the BBC is a socially responsible broadcaster, I just think we need to hear that". He argued that broadcasters were not being ambitious enough, and outlined his party's plans, should it be elected to government at the next General Election, to relax regulation for those broadcasters who agreed to provide only socially responsible output. In addition to citing the Ross/Brand/Sachs affair as a "perfect example" of where such a "responsibility deal" could have operated, he also pointed to Channel 4 as an example, stating that it was "not good enough" for it to produce "worthy" programmes such as Dispatches documenting alcohol abuse in the U.S., whilst at the same time it was broadcasting programmes such as Hollyoaks where such abuse took up, according to his estimates, 18% of screen time. The culture spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, Don Foster, criticised this idea, stating that it threatened the very foundation principles of freedom and independence of British media, arguing that such government interference in television programming would be "a very sad day for British broadcasting", and pointing out that regulatory mechanisms already exist to deal with issues such as this.
On 29 October, Conservative MP Nadine Dorries had already called for the BBC to terminate the contracts of both Ross and Brand, and in the Commons David Hanson had criticised the comments for being inappropriate and not "in keeping with broadcasting".
Secretary of State for Justice Jack Straw, writing in his local newspaper the Lancashire Telegraph on 30 October (see Straw in Further reading), became the first Cabinet Minister to call for the pair to be sacked, arguing that if both presenters had worked in local radio "they'd have been given their P45 before you could say 'Jack Robinson'".
On the same day, Shadow Leader of the House of Commons, Theresa May, called for a Commons debate on the BBC's handling of the affair.
Reaction against censures and suspensions
In the days following the suspensions, a number of celebrities, particularly from television and radio, came out in support of Brand and Ross. Many felt that, whilst the incident was unacceptable, it was not deserving of the strong criticism it received, especially when there were other issues troubling the United Kingdom.
Rod McKenzie, the editor of BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat, observed on the BBC Editors' weblog (see Further reading) that audience reactions to Brand's and Ross's remarks had been polarised, noting that whilst his colleagues at Radio 4, Radio 5 Live, television, and the BBC World Service had been seeing one thing, the younger audiences of Radio 1 had been reacting quite differently, and were broadly supportive of Ross and Brand. Some were amazed at the comments of the Prime Minister, with one person observing that "[t]he financial markets are wrecked and all he can do is talk about a petty joke." Others stated that people should "calm down", "get a grip", and that the subject had been "blown out of all proportion". McKenzie also characterised the reaction from the news media as containing "anger: some genuine, some of it synthetic. Some of it comes from the BBC's usual critics." He stated that for the people who worked in the media "profile and salary-envy and schadenfreude may play a part in all this. But how many heard the original transmission and how many are responding to the newspapers' quotes or others' arguments?"
Tim Shaw, disc jockey for Absolute Radio, also supported Ross and Brand, appearing on BBC News wearing a T-shirt that read "I back Brand." The television presenter Paul O'Grady similarly backed the pair, stating at the National Television Awards that the Prime Minister should get on with more important matters than complaining about media gossip. Carol McGiffin, a presenter on ITV's daytime programme Loose Women similarly supported the pair, criticising those who complained and stating that she could not wait to download the official podcast which included the incident.
Oasis leader and friend of Russell Brand, Noel Gallagher, commented on the situation: "Personally, I'm outraged that, yet again, the joyless fuckers who write the columns in The Daily Mail, The Telegraph or The Observer have dictated the tone and are telling people how to behave, I've seen the Daily Mail, they said that Russell should be arrested and charged. Arrested for what? For taking the piss? It's so typical of the English in general. 10,000 people get outraged, but only days after it has happened." Gallagher also said, "I spoke to Russell, he told me he was going to fall on his sword."
A petition on the GoPetition web site, calling for the BBC to "to turn blame on the 'Andrew Sachs' incident away from Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, and instead onto whoever green lighted the show" had garnered 336 signatures by 29 October. At the same time, a similar group on Facebook had over 1,000 members. By 30 October, the petition had risen to 4,000 signatures and the Facebook group to 15,609 members. By 2 November, the Facebook group had over 30,000 members, which had risen to over 43,000 members by 5 November.
On 30 October, fans of Ross and Brand protested outside of the offices of the BBC. On 31 October, fans prepared to hold a protest outside of the offices of the Daily Mail and of the BBC.
Comedian Jimmy Carr has also expressed his support for Ross, saying the issue had been been blown out of proportion, and blamed the media themselves for escalating it further, and that Ross was a "national treasure".
Celebrity publicist Max Clifford has played down the apparent outrage aimed at Brand. In a recent interview he said "I don't think this will cause any problems for Russell Brand. He's known to be controversial and, if anything, it will make him more popular amongst his fans, who will have thought this was hilarious...They won't see anything wrong in what he did. It is a big PR success for him...He will have no problem with his career."
TV critic and columnist Charlie Brooker stated on his show, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, his worry that the controversy would lead to a chilling effect on comedy, and that the BBC and others would self-censor too much in future. He went on to say that the attitude displayed by the complainants and the BBC's backing down would have, in earlier times, precluded the production of much of what was at the time edgy comedy and made culture poorer for it (citing Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Day Today and The Young Ones amongst others as shows that would have been nixed due to controversy). While pouring scorn on those who had complained without seeing the programme, and upon newspapers that attempted to stir up further controversy (in particular the Daily Mail), he did not appear to defend Brand and Ross in particular, stating that the possibility of people being offended by some misjudged humour is "the price you pay for freedom of speech". In a further column in The Guardian, he reiterated this point as well as saying that "people who retrospectively complain to Ofcom about material they've only read about second-hand are, in essence, a bunch of sanctimonious crybabies indulging in a wretched form of masturbation".
Georgina Baillie reaction
Reacting to the suspension of Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross on 29 October, Baillie remarked: "I'm thrilled because justice has been done...It's despicable. Calling me that in public, not only does it damage my relationship with my granddad but it could permanently damage my life as well," despite having declared apathy to the sentiment referenced in the latter sentence on her Myspace page.
A week later, on 5 November 2008, UK television channel Five broadcast a 1 hour documentary on the incident, titled Russell & Ross: What the F*** Was All That About? featuring an exclusive interview with Baillie. Baillie stated in the interview that "I think it's way out of proportion what's happened and I don't hate either of them - I don't at all", going on to say "I think they're really talented comedians and I think a world without Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand would be a very sad, dull place." She concluded by saying that Brand needed to learn about respecting women, whilst Ross should just think before he speaks, "I don't have any harder feeling than that". Baillie also made clear that she would not object to the reinstatement of both Brand and Ross.
Support for Lesley Douglas
A number of radio personalities employed by the BBC came out in support of Lesley Douglas, after her resignation. Douglas was aware of the contents of the programme, but had not heard them before they were broadcast. She sanctioned its broadcast with a single word e-mail of "Yes" sent from her BlackBerry. Amongst her supporters were Chris Evans and Terry Wogan, both of whom worked for BBC Radio 2 at the time, and Dame Liz Forgan, who called her one of the "outstanding broadcasters of her generation", and said that the BBC had "lost its wits." Mark Thompson said that because of her knowledge of the broadcast, she had to shoulder some of the responsibility.
Subsequent appearances by Brand and Ross
Ross had been scheduled to host the 2008 British Comedy Awards for ITV during the period of his suspension from the BBC. However, on 31 October he stepped down.
On 31 October, Brand left the country, saying that he had work to do in America, including TV programmes, and film collaborations with Judd Apatow and Helen Mirren. The second series of Brand's Channel 4 television show Russell Brand's Ponderland aired as normal on the previous evening, attracting 1 million viewers, the show's largest ever audience. A further 180,000 watched the show time-shifted on the Channel 4+1 timeshift channel. The first series of Ponderland, aired in October 2007, had been watched by 840,000 viewers, including those watching Channel 4+1. The channel reported that it had received 164 complaints from the public, many of these criticising the decision to broadcast the programme, rather than a reflection on the content, and the majority before the programme was transmitted; the show also attracted 212 emails and phone-calls of praise from fans and as such was the most praised programme screened on Channel 4 for that month.
On 2 November a Sunday newspaper published a camera phone clip recorded during production of the Ponderland show, in which Brand is allegedly heard talking about the incident despite being told not to by the show's producers, and stating of Baillie, "I mean, that poor, innocent satanic slut".
Jeremy Clarkson, presenter of the BBC motoring show Top Gear, made a brief quip about the incident, "Andrew Sachs had been due to be our star in a reasonably-priced car. Messages have been left for Sachs about it but we've heard no word from him."
Brand similarly continued to be on the front cover of PETA's "Vegetarian Starter Kit" booklet, despite people protesting to the organisation. PETA's director, Robbie LeBlanc, said that Brand, who had previously won PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity contest twice, would remain on the cover "because Mr Sachs, who is also a PETA supporter, has accepted Mr Brand's apology, and that's good enough for us".
Brand went on to win the British Comedy Award for Best Live Standup Performer. In his acceptance speech, Brand dedicated his award to Ross.
After being taken off the air due to Ross' suspension, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross returned to BBC One on 23 January 2009, featuring guests Tom Cruise, Lee Evans and Stephen Fry. The show was watched by 5.1 million viewers, an increase from the 3.74 million of the last show before going off air. Ross's return attracted 25 complaints and 3 messages of support to the BBC.
BBC Trust ruling
On 21 November 2008, the BBC's watchdog BBC Trust said that the phone calls were a "deplorable intrusion with no editorial justification." The Trust found that the existing BBC guidelines should have been sufficient to have prevented the incident, and that the "very offensive" programme should "never have been recorded". It found the failures lay in mistakes made by BBC editorial and compliance management. The Trust gave its backing to the BBC's response to the incident and Ross's 12-week suspension..
Echoing the findings of the BBC Trust, the BBC itself stated the incident was a "very, very serious failure in a radio programme where editorial judgement was exercised that seriously let the BBC down."
The Trust also criticised Brand's "so-called apology" of 25 October, and the staff of Chris Moyles's BBC Radio 1 show for also breaching BBC guidelines for comments by Brand in an interview on the morning of 21 October at a time when children were likely to be listening.
The Trust recommended tighter controls for programmes such as Brand's, made by companies owned by their performers. Long-term effects of the controversy would include the setting up of a register of high-risk programmes.
Further reading
External links
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