Regulators impose heavy penalty

The BBC has been fined £150,000 over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross’s phone calls to Andrew Sachs last October.

Regulator Ofcom said: ‘The scale of the fine reflects the extraordinary nature and seriousness of the BBC’s failures.’

In their ruling, the watchdogs added: ‘The BBC broadcast explicit, intimate and confidential information about Georgina Baillie, the granddaughter of the actor Andrew Sachs without their consent. This not only unwarrantably and seriously infringed their privacy but was also gratuitously offensive, humiliating and demeaning.’

The watchdog also criticised the management that let the segment – in which the two stars left a series of answerphone messages repeatedly teasing Sachs that Brand had slept with Baillie – air.

It said: ‘Ofcom’s investigation revealed that despite the Russell Brand show being considered by the BBC to be “high risk” prior to these episodes, the broadcaster had ceded responsibility for managing some of that risk to those working for the presenter, Russell Brand.’

Brand quit his show following the calls while Ross, who was his guest, was suspended from the BBC for three months. The scandal also claimed the scalps of Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas and a senior compliance manager.

A damning list of failures highlighted by Ofcom today included the facts that:

• No senior manager at Radio 2 listened to the pre-recorded programme of 18 October 2008 in its entirety before broadcast;
• There was a failure to obtain the informed consent of Andrew Sachs;
• There was no attempt at all to obtain consent from Georgina Baillie

The BBC has assured Ofcom that it would tighten up its procedures for complying with the broadcasting code – but the regulator pointed out that the corporation had made similar promises before the offending broadcast.

In a statement, the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, said: ‘The Trust regrets that these serious breaches by the BBC have led to a financial penalty being applied by Ofcom and the loss of licence fee payers' money as a result.’

It added that the internal Editorial Standards Committee had already investigated the material and found that ‘the content was so grossly offensive there was no justification for its broadcast [which] represented an abuse of the privilege given to the BBC to broadcast to its audiences’.

Meanwhile, the BBC management released a statement saying: ‘We accept Ofcom's findings. This material should never have been broadcast and we apologised unreservedly for that.

‘The BBC has since taken comprehensive action to deal with what were unacceptable failures in editorial judgement and compliance which led to the broadcast. In addition and as is well-known, two very senior managers and Russell Brand resigned and Jonathan Ross was suspended without pay for 12 weeks.’

As well as the fines Ofcom also directed Radio 2 to broadcast a summary of its findings.

Published: 3 Apr 2009