russell brand - C or D?

i see what you mean. When i first heard about this immediately what sprung to mind was a news article not too long ago about bullying via mobile phones - nuisance calls and nasty text messages. I guess I was categorising this into that personally.

But yeah probably a lot of the complainers might not see it that way and would take offence if you took the phone out of the equation.

'tis all a bit silly.

There should be a telepoll of "who should get the sack". I will add the nastier one from Little Britain to the list.

Even if it's just bandwagon-jumping Daily Mail complainers saying "he's rude, he's a millionaire, it's disgusting" that's still a part of the "does the BBC exist to do this?" argument, whether they know it or not.

As a punishment I would like the BBC to take "2 pints of lager" of the air.

off

that would be sweet

at least there will be some good material for Ross' new year eve show.

Given the lack of input we have into an organisation we own, I think a lot of the complaints here come from a desire to exercise control, over anything, within the BBC. With no other outlet, such a 'scandal' becomes a proxy referendum about overpay within the corporation.

ftse up 316 points!

Brand's resigned from Radio 2.

Andrew Sachs - Voice of Reason

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7696714.stm

I love this video...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7697768.stm
There's one woman grinning madly at the front who surely isn't a journo and is just getting some nice close up action on her video.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3280/2984816228_6ce343cc49_o.jpg

yep, resigned

I suspect that Brand's fallen on his sword to save Wossy here.

How do you think George Lamb and Jeremy Clarkson can be persuaded to make a prank call to Richard Attenborough?

This magical £18m figure that gets quoted as often as Ross's salary - what exactly is that?

Is it, as I suspect, in fact what the BBC pays his production company to put together his telly show, his radio show and the film programme, as well as all those BBC4 documentaries about Japan?

Or does he literally take home £18m during the length of his contract? After tax, of course.

I think it's paid to the production company to produce his shows, and he walks away with a £6m salary of that.

I thought it was £18m over three years, hence the £6m/yr figure?

Ah, perhaps. But is it to him as salary, or company as production fee?

It has to be the latter.

I'd imagine once you take staff salaries out of it as well as other costs, it's not so impressive.

And Russell Brand wouldn't be a BBC 'employee' as such, would he? He merely works there. I always thought he was a Channel 4 star, anyway.

I imagine that Ross' money is routed through his production company. Generally speaking, this practice is also useful for *cough* tax purposes.

And in place of "Friday Night With Schoolboy Pranks", it's the movie "Speed".

ITV News leading with this and loving it

No-one watches ITV News for actual news though.

Thursday's Sun headline: BRAND YELLED "QUE?" IN BED

Has anyone done the "Eeez not love rat, eeez hamster" headline yet?

― Carrie Bradshaw Layfield (The stickman from the hilarious 'xkcd' comics), Wednesday, 29 October 2008

arf!

I didn't think anybody was actually offended by this (other than by the fact it wasn't funny)

isn't it just a mixture of schadenfreude, ross-hate, 4chan-style ambient celebanthropy, and internet co-ordinated b&s/rick astley system gaming? I mean, I know I complained (as did my little bro)

You ACTUALLY complained? I assumed you were joking.

I didn't think anybody was actually offended by this

Older viewers give their thoughts

It's like the Pistols on Grundy all over again - but with pictures!

I'd imagine once you take staff salaries out of it as well as other costs, it's not so impressive.

sure

Depressing. Thoroughly depressing.

A daft little prank on a minority listenership late night radio show which would have bothered no one had the tabloids not blown it up into a Good Story becomes the straw which breaks the BBC's back.

And now the degrading spectacle of the coward Director-General asking Paul Dacre how brown he'd like his tongue, sir.

If we're going to censure or dismiss people for indulging in certain brands (ahem) of humour that some might not like then we might as well rename this country Iraq and have done with it.

INGSOC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7698988.stm

More famouser people says what they think: Eamon Holmes gets it closer than most. Andrew castle manages to say almost nothing. Lois Walsh doesn't like JRoss much, it seems.

i think we should drop bombs on the bbc for this gross breach of freedom and their weapon of ross destruction

The general "oh he's had this coming for a LONG time" cackling is extremely distasteful.

No denunication of the Mail on Sunday or the Sun, of course.

A Director-General with a spine would have laughed off thugs like Dacre and Wade, seen things in a proper perspective and left well alone.

27,000 complaints now, no doubt all from the type of people who sit in front of the TV or radio and wait to be offended.

And Ms Baillie has a nice new career.

Isn't Britain wonderful?

sit in front of the newspaper, more like.

I'm presuming that this evening's edition of Never Mind The Buzzcocks, featuring R Brand as guest captain, will be "postponed."

Bet it's not.

Loving how all the papers are all united in publishing "BBC FILTH MUST END NOW" headlines.

It's been replaced by one with James Corden as guest captain. I can only assume nothing offensive will be said about anyone on that, or on the Graham Norton show afterwards. xpost

Will be interesting-ish to see what Hislop makes of it all on HIGNFY tomorrow.

Actually, with guest host Tom Baker, I can't see it being anything other than excruciatingly horrible.

why is there only a system for taking complaints and no system for taking supporting arguments? is paying your licence the only kind of support, until you decide to complain about it? oh you have a teevee, you must be in favor of our radio programs, until you write in and say you're not, in which case, thank you for continuing to pay for socialized teevee, hopefully the person who you don't like quits in shame.

this is almost worse than when congress holds hearings about fucking baseball

Yes, welcome to the lovely, blanded out BBC where no one ever does or says anything that offends anyone else for fear of some saddo in a bedsit who's run out of Kleenex ringing in to "complain."

Just like in the olden days.

The Mail to-day...

Lest we forget: Or what the BBC won't let you hear....

We apologise to readers who may be offended by the explicit and disturbing language used. But we think it is important to know exactly the sort of material these presenters thought so funny.

Followed by yet another airing of the full transcript.

Yeah, but think about it:

Pre the so-called 'liberalisation', any slight reference to a rude word would result in hundreds of complaints, and 'action' taken. It wasn't that long ago (was it? reassure me) that Shaun Ryder was banned specifically by ch4 charter from ever appearing live again. (and that was after the 'Patrick Cox shoes' incident - did the 'pretty vacant' come later?)

Now, it's perfectly alright to swear as long as you are a TV chef.

Sex, swearing, all fine now, nobody (well, relatively few) bother complaining.

That's why it's taken so long to generate a head of steam about this issue: the people who'd not bother (and in actuallity, aren't that bothered) about complaining suddenly feel enfranchised (that a word?) to take up their phones and/or commentboxes and join in.

Personally, I have more of an issue about TV 'detective'/'police' dramas that always seem to involve rapes and/or grisly murders as if it's all in a days life. That's more responsible for knife crime than people actually carrying knives, I reckons.

I get to the point of saying "we done with this subject/thread now?" but still the outside media carry it on further, so I guess we're not.

When's the Pope issuing a statement?