Ross and Brand to be investigated by Ofcom
Sky has the full story. The BBC also has it, but again in its coverage of this forgets to mention that it received over 1,500 complaints – interesting context, I thought.
UPDATE: Definitely not a good day for the Beeb, with both Melanie Phillips and the Guardian’s John Harris having a go at it.
Maybe they saw your post – the current version (updated 11.33) says:
As of Tuesday morning, the BBC said it had received more than 4,700 complaints.
You should use the Radio 5 live to pay back their phone in this morning. If ever a phone in had the usual left wing socialist losers ringing into to support Toss and Bland this was it. One so called “independent” producer (who clearly gets his fix off BBC money) claimed it was just a story being used by Sky and the Daily Mail to put down the BBC.
And of course the endless list of those who claimed “I pay my TV licence fee and I like this sort of comedy” who were claiming they were just pushing the “envelope” for comedy.
The BBC just seem to put their fingers in their ears and shout “la la la” as soon as something comes up they don’t like hearing.
I saw someone from the indy lambasting the beeb over thison sky paper review.
How apt that, over at the utterly useless BBC Radio Solent, there’s no-one in the newsroom who knows how to say “Sachs” correctly.
All paid for by the Telly Tax.
The BBC think it was a ‘prank’ or is that ‘pwank’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/default.stm
It’s quite simple the pair should be sacked. No if’s no buts, no excuses. Sacked. Brand is and always has been probably the unfunniest (if such a word exists) man on TV and Woss not much better.
Listening to a couple of the pro-Brand-&-Ross callers this morning on R5’s phone-in (“Oh God, this is a Daily Mail agenda to suit the professional offence-takers”), I pictured louche smirking types of the very sort who appear to man much of the BBC.
You don’t think the Beeb would be so low as to put up its ‘friends’ (eg likeminded freelancers) or employees to call in….do you?
R
a staggering 761 comments generated on this Daily Mail reporting of it
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080839/Ofcom-probe-scandal-Ross-Brands-prank-pressure-grows-sacked-despite-apologies.html
and the amount of complaints has shot up to 4,700
and now Gerald Kaufman has a go at the BBC
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1081096/An-apology-BBC-isnt-says-chairman-Commons-media-watchdog.html
How amusing to see the normally politically correct BBC being attacked by the politically correct! Really, you couldn’t make it up đŸ™‚
If anybody missed it, I’ve created an edited version of the phone calls and uploaded it here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=46a3455a56125050ab1eab3e9fa335ca01758793001bc261
we should all be grateful to the cockney with the speech impediment, hopefully with all the public outrage its generated, Al Beeb will sack the said cockney with the speech impediment
another nail in Al Beebs coffin, super smashin great jim bowen style
BBC ‘pushes the envelope of comedy’? -Remember this, 6 months ago?:
“BBC is too scared of Islam, says Ben Elton”
[Extract]:
“Ben Elton has accused the BBC of unjust political correctness by allowing jokes about vicars but vetoing gags about imams.
“Elton, whose children attend a church school, said that the BBC was too ‘scared’ of Islam and of jokes about Islam to let them pass.”
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article3663195.ece
Personally, I found it quite funny to listen to. However, it clearly isn’t acceptable behaviour. Possibly the sort of ‘prank’ that should be played on Ross rather than Andrew Sachs.
If it is a criminal offence, surely the police should be investigating ? Or don’t they think there is enough evidence ?
Reimer 3:11
The BBC would never rig a phone-in , opinion poll, competition, Question Time audience , er, ……
Amazing the number of ‘It’s just Daily Mail readers’ attempts, which are getting pretty short shrift from many, like me, who can’t stand the rag.
Along with the ‘look at her, he deserves it’ brigade, including the Daily Mail, at least by ‘who, us?’ po-faced faux innocence, which is why I can’t stand it.
But my personal favourites are those who seem to think it’s worth trying out ‘if you don’t like it you don’t have to pay… er… watch it’.
I have found myself in rather unexpected company these last few days. We may not agree on all sorts of stuff, but when a line has been over-stepped, it doesn’t matter where you are coming from, you say so and expect action.
The thing about this is that it is selective, willed, “safe” behaviour, chosen deliberately by them and aimed at approved targets because it is sanctioned by the Boy Broadcaster and Bodger Thompson.
On the other hand, these crude yobs are oh so pious when it comes to specified groups who are treated by them with an exaggerated deference that is wholly artificial but enjoined by the Boy Broadcaster.
In other words, they are not genuine outragers at all; they are just your common-or-garden everyday average unthinking misogynist yobs, themselves never a target for derision and public humiliation by powerful broadcast media but deferred to by the crude hypocrites who run such organisations at public expense.
It is atrocious to see the gross, sleazy Brand being ferried around in chauffered cars and paid large sums for this. No wonder he cannot keep the smirk off his face at all this attention today. Both he and Ross have previous form for this kind of insulting behaviour and are being rewarded handsomely by us (via Bodger) for it. That is the worst outrage.
Juveniles of such low quality and accomplishment, if employed at all, should be paid the juvenile minimum wage rate. It is below the adult rate, at something around £3 to £4 an hour. It really wouldn’t be difficult to reduce the licence tax to about 1% of its current wildly improvident level. Just get rid of most of the trashy output, including what passes for news (social and political propaganda) and pay off the lowlifes on these inflated contracts. Easy peasy.
Mind you, did you see the state of the trashy boiler Woss and Bland were having a crack at? She could hardly claim it has damaged her ‘reputation’ as a ‘Burlesque performer’ – Which is bohemian speak for stripper.
I wouldn’t touch it with Bland’s, but he clearly didn’t share such an appraisal.
Ironically, these two desperately unfunny nob ends do seem to appeal almost exclusively to the kind of ‘Burlesque performers’ they have offended – so in a way they deserve each other.
But both Bland and Woss so get under my skin, they do deserve the sacking that the BBC would be braying for if this had been 2 right wing comedians on Kiss FM or some such shite. I don’t know I don’t listen to the radio so I don’t know if Kiss still exists or if there is such a thing as a right wing comedian.
Anyway, we all know the BBC won’t be sacking anyone, unless it was the poor sod who was cleaning the toilets when Bland and Co were broadcasting. Beeboids typically look after their own like a pride of lions at the only watering hole in the serengetti.
Millie Tant:
“the Boy Broadcaster” “average unthinking misogynist yobs”
Uhm…so you haven’t been paying attention to the amount of top level BBC execs and producers that have their jobs purely by virtue of their sex. I.E: being a woman. I’m sure Woss and Bland are knee deep in women who had the power to say “we’re not broadcasting that crap”.
Now I understand why you chose that particular Viz character as your posting name.
“…To be investigated by OFCOM”
Wow, I bet they’re quaking in their boots. OFCOM’s policies are about as degraded and anti-British as those of the BBC. What’s the betting they will find nothing to reproach Woss and Bwand for.
What I found amusing is that the BBC were quick to go along with the Daily Mail when “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” had a go at Boris Johnson and the Olympics handover.
Oh and perhaps it’s me but don’t Daily Mail readers also pay the TV tax and therefore why should it just be drug taking rent boy using Guardian readers that only have their opinions noted?
Grant: Someone would have to make a formal complaint to the Police as I understand it before they can get involved.
Although the Police could I guess seize the unedited tape as evidence and take it from there.
Although it’s well overdue for the long-suffering British masses to finally come out and say “enough is enough”, I’m greatly saddened that it has taken an incident of relative triviality to stir them from their collective torpor. Why wasn’t such energy and coordinated outrage generated before against the myriad evils of this Labour regime in terms of its economic and political policy?
I cite its refusal to hold the promised referendum on the EU Treaty; open-doors immigration policies and the raping of pensions by robber Brown, as just three examples of where organised and channelled public protests would have been extremely welcome. Sadly, it seems the dumbed down British people can only be moved nowadays where celebrity culture is involved.
Martin 6:00
Well , if no-one else does, I’ll make a formal complaint to the police. Pop down to my local police station, if there is one and see if anyone is at home !
Grant: Just park on a yellow line or read out the names of dead soldiers outside Downing Street. You’ll get plenty of coppers to complain to!
Listening to 5 Live throughout today I have become increasingly suspicious of the number of callers on that station who attempt to use a Daily Mail related example as some sort of justification for Ross and Brand’s indescretions.
Kill the Beeb:
Er…no, I did it as a pun on one of the Boy Broadcaster’s relentlessly favoured euphemisms for terrorists of a certain stripe. It is a crack at the Beeb and was at the time also a bit of a wry joke for David Vance who was being particularly plagued by the m word at every turn.
Your posts above don’t do you any credit.
I think that there is an ethos about many Beeboids that they are somehow ‘untouchable’, and not responsible to mere licence-payers.
Listening to, and viewing a wide variety of BBC broadcasting during the day, many of the Beeboid’s presenters seem shocked that ‘their’ organisation is being so strongly criticised.
One Tory MP, Nigel Evans, made some strong criticisms of the BBC, but ended up urging a fine on the BBC. This seems to be counter-productive. Who pays the fine in the end? We licence-payers.
Another Tory MP on Radio 5 live this afternoon thought that Mark Thompson, Director General, should be sacked. The Beeboid intervewer was incredulous. She couldn’t see what the problem was. At the end of the interview she grudgingly said to the Tory MP (name escapes me, but he was an ex-BBC, ex-ITV producer):’thank you for your time’. She appeared to take everything he said personally.
I expect the BBC to carry on regardless of licencepayer criticism, just as it does with its daily political bias for Labour, Islam, Obama and multiculturalism. I am surprised that more politicians do not monitor and criticise this aspect of BBc output much more.
And, of course, we had Brown, not wanting to get involved in BBC case 3 hours ago, but then, chameleon-like, changing his political hue a few minutes ago, and wanting action.
glj: Of course the Daily Mail sells about 15 times the number of newpapers a day that the Guaridan and independent sell combined. The BBC forgets that people who buy the Daily Mail are also TV tax payers.
But the rent boy loving beeboids are only interested in their little of smack using Islington twats.
Fine. Go fund themselves.
While lamenting that it has taken the abuse of a veteran comedian to get the comatose British masses off their arses to challenge the putrid values of the BBC, this might just be the one incident that starts the ball rolling for the aims of this blog. It certainly seems to have opened up the nation’s consciousness as to how low the BBC has sunk.
Martin:
What is it with you and rent boys, cottaging and god knows what other ‘poovery’ you’re always aiming at the beeboids.
Smack?? I don’t think smack is the drug of choice in Islington mate. You should get out of your 80’s homestead a bit more. You may find Charlie and Ket is a little more the rage in that neck of the woods.
JohnW:
“While lamenting that it has taken the abuse of a veteran comedian to get the comatose British masses off their arses to challenge the putrid values of the BBC…”
I’m lost as to how you would think that. This is a co-ordinated attack from Fleet Street. Joe public has nothing to do with it. They certainly didn’t have to get off their sofas to telephone the BBC complaints line – the phone would have been one arm stretch away.
And if the media weren’t putting thoughts into their tiny little minds, they would have left the phone well alone.
Britain is sleeping mate. Leave it be.
Kill the Beeb:
Martin:
What is it with you and rent boys, cottaging and god knows what other ‘poovery’ you’re always aiming at the beeboids.
Smack?? I don’t think smack is the drug of choice in Islington mate. You should get out of your 80’s homestead a bit more. You may find Charlie and Ket is a little more the rage in that neck of the woods.
Kill the Beeb | 28.10.08 – 10:59 pm | #
Are you a fan of the old Calvin Kleins, Kill the Beeb?
And if the media weren’t putting thoughts into their tiny little minds, they would have left the phone well alone.
Britain is sleeping mate. Leave it be.
Kill the Beeb | 28.10.08 – 11:01 pm | #
The BBC Complaints line. Well, it is a thread on sick humour.
I must, again, take issue with the logic flowing from ‘only two people complained’ (just made core viewer read-out by BBC Breakfast blonde)… and only anyone who sees the news live now has the right to have an opinion… IF the news media is allowed to mention anything historical any more on this basis.
That’ll work.
I could give a monkeys about who complained or what the tabs play with. I now know the facts and, IMHO, a pretty major issue on the way an entity I co-fund has been brought to my attention.
And I am not in the mood to allow this ‘storm in a teacup’, as being pumped out currently in front of my very eyes, to blow over without result quiet yet.
If the shockingly unamusing Brand is sacked by the Beeb he’ll show up on some “edgy” MTV type thing in no time – off the hook.
The longer he’s there, the more grief he’ll get and the more chance of a highly amusing public mental breakdown. Hopefully he’ll turn out to be the new Joey Barton.