and suspends Ross and Brand.
The BBC can not afford to fall foul of OFCOM at presently, so senior people connected to this incident won't sleep too well while the enguiry continues. Brand will lose out finding future employment on the radio a tad harder to secure, he will be regarded as a TOTAL loose cannon. Ross will survive and may even improve as a broadcaster following on fropm here.

Surely the show's producer Nic Philps is mainly culpable?

SW wrote:
Surely the show's producer Nic Philps is mainly culpable?

Agreed. The sad part about this story is that Brand uses his radio show as a form of therapy. Surpresses his demons apparently.

The Mail On Sunday is totally culpable - otherwise nobody would know or care about it.

Shoot the messenger.

It's not often I disagree with you JK, but all the MoS did was highlight what went on. I hadn't heard the show, but I am capable of having a view, having had the incedent brought to my (and millions others) attention.

What is wrong is:

1) What Ross and Brand did was unacceptable in ANY situation.

2) That the programme was pre-recorded made it worse. The blame shifts to others at the BBC who should have stopped the show going out.

3) Having had the event exposed by the MoS, the BBC should have acted swiftly, and decisvely. Not with "Heads rolling", but genuine apologies, and enquiry, and suspension of ALL involved until the enquiry is concluded.

Because (3) didn't happen, it makes (1) and (2) even worse, and plays into media hands.

I drop bollocks - we all do - but it's how you react to it, (with apologies and ways of rectification) that really matter, and the BBC failed, and played right into the hands of The Sun, Daily Mail etc.

Piss poor management is a bigger problem than Ross and Brand themselves.

35,000 complaint calls! A drop in the ocean!

My God, I got 18,500 LETTERS when I criticised Live Aid and that was only in one column in one paper!

Over reaction and why? Because it's a good story (for about 5 minutes - bored now, please).

My responses to you Dixie...

1) The silly phone call was not unacceptable. It was simply tasteless, not very funny and misjudged. It was in a late night minority interest show. Trivial and unimportant. We are paying people to murder innocent women and children. THAT is unacceptable (not that anyone cares - unless the tabloids decide to air righteous indignation).

2) Mistake. Shouldn't have been aired. Get over it.

3) The BBC should have supported its staff and taken the blame with a mild instant apology but that's what the corporation has become. Unimportant issue.

The Mail and Sun and so on are the real villains with a clear agenda (destroy the opposition).
I found Max Clifford's story in the Sun today far, far, far more offensive, not least because Clifford is yet again deliberately taking advantage of a vulnerable, brainless girl - as he has done before.