BBC bans Ross for 12 weeks, amends schedules
The BBC has suspended presenter Jonathan Ross for three months without pay for his role in the previously reported lewd phone calls scandal, forcing channel schedulers to make a raft of on-the-fly changes.
The Corporation has received more than 35,700 complaints after Ross and comedian Russell Brand used the latter’s BBC Radio 2 show to make lewd phone calls to 78-year-old actor Andrew Sachs’s answering machine on October 18.
In a statement issued last night, after a formal BBC investigation into the incident, BBC director general Mark Thompson said: “Jonathan Ross’s contribution to… Russell Brand’s show was utterly unacceptable and cannot be allowed to go uncensured or without sanction. A 12-week suspension is an exceptional step, but I believe it is a proportionate response to Jonathan’s role in this unhappy affair.
“I have made very clear to him the central importance of the clause in his contract about not bringing the BBC into disrepute. We agree that nothing like this must ever happen again and that tight discipline will be required for the future.”
Last night’s planned broadcast of BBC2 comedy panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks, which featured Brand as a guest, was pulled, with the next episode of the show being bought forward instead. The BBC said it has no plans to air the Brand episode.
As previously reported, tonight’s episode of Friday Night With Jonathan Ross will be replaced with 1994 action movie Speed. Going forward, a BBC spokeswoman said the Corporation had yet to finalise what would be filling the 22.35 Friday night slot over the next 12 weeks, but that it would not be a chat show with a different host.
Also affected by the suspension is Ross’s late-night film review show, Film 2008, which airs Sundays on BBC2. This Sunday’s episode will be replaced with nature documentary Wild. As with the BBC1 chat show, a 12-week schedule of replacement programming is still being worked out.
In addition, the BBC’s Editorial Standards Board is to lead a study into where the appropriate boundaries of taste and standards should lie across all BBC output, including TV. The conclusions will be reported to the BBC Trust and will inform the revision of the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines which is currently underway and is scheduled to be completed in 2009.
Ross, who during widespread redundancies at the public broadcaster joked that his salary was justified because he is “worth 1,000 BBC journalists,” is one of the Corporation’s highest paid stars, with reported earnings of £6m per year. The 12-week suspension will cost him an estimated £1.4m.
