The BBC today: is it honest and competent?

Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross

On 18th October 2008 Radio 2 presenters, Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, made an obscene nuisance phone call to the voicemail of 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. Brand had told listeners: "The elephant in the room is, what Andrew doesn't know is, I've slept with his granddaughter [Georgina Baillie]."

Andrew Sachs didn't answer the phone but Brand left a message on his voicemail during which he repeated the claim and Ross shouted "He ****** your granddaughter!", producing laughter in the studio.

Ross subsequently speculated that Brand had "enjoyed" the 23-year-old granddaughter on a swing. Brand suggested that Andrew Sachs might kill himself upon hearing the news.

Mr Sachs was left "upset" by the calls and the BBC has received over 1500 complaints from listeners.

Speaking about the row for the first time, Andrew Sachs said: "People ask me if I'm angry - well, yes, but not half as angry as Georgina. That's where the apology should be directed. People are writing about it and talking about it, quite rightly. I am sorry that I am involved in it. I love the BBC, I have worked for them for over 50 years and I continue to work for them. Sometimes things can go wrong."

27th October update: the BBC has issued an apology to Andrew Sachs but not to his granddaughter. Ross has written to the actor to apologise and Brand has made a joke apology on air.

There is no news about investigations at the BBC, Ofcom, the police or the CPS. No dismissals have been announced yet.

28th October update: Brand apologised to Andrew Sachs. Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, stayed silent. Tim Davie, the BBC’s neophyte head of radio and music, and the most senior executive to comment, admitted that the programme that went out was “unacceptable”. He said that the BBC would conduct a full investigation.

Georgina Baillie, who had still not received an apology, called for Brand and Ross to be fired. Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, said that the incident was clearly inappropriate and unacceptable. David Cameron, the opposition leader, demanded to know who had given the green light to the broadcast. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, described the incident as a serious breach of broadcasting standards. Ofcom decided to investigate.

29th October update: It emerged that Mark Thompson had been on holiday during the crisis. He flew back to London, reversing Davie's decision statement that Brand and Ross would not be suspended. Brand resigned from the BBC and wrote to Andrew Sachs apologising. Lawyers reportedly reviewed Ross's £18 million contract to see how the BBC could extricate itself. Matthew Bannister, a BBC employee, appeared on the BBC news to say the public's reaction to the matter was inappropriate.

Thompson had arrived as director-general with ineffectual management already in place at the top of the BBC and then weakened it. Jenny Abramsky, head of radio, quit earlier in the year and was replaced by Davie, a Procter and Gamble brand manager. Jana Bennett was left in post at BBC television. Mark Byford, deputy director-general, had made no appearance during the crisis. Thompson was facing the consequences to the incompetent management he put or left in place.

30th October: Mark Thompson and Mark Byford were summoned to explain themselves before the BBC Trust, meeting above a shop in Marylebone. Sources said Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas had threatened to quit if her employees were "scapegoated" for the affair. It is not known if she had the considered the possibility she might be fired for the editorial lapse on her channel. Complaints topped 30,000. Brand's TV show about bestiality was still scheduled for Channel 4.

Jonathan Ross was suspended from all BBC shows without pay for 12 weeks. Mark Thompson called Ross's actions "utterly unacceptable", adding that Ross should regard the suspension as a "final warning".

The controller of BBC Radio 2, Lesley Douglas, resigned over the broadcasts involving Ross and Russell Brand. Douglas said the decision to leave her job was "mine and mine alone" and was made with "enormous regret".

Hugh Pym on The Six O'Clock News

Hugh Pym is currently the BBC's economic editor, standing in for Stephanie Flanders who is on maternity leave. On 29th September 2008 Pym appeared on the evening news bulletin on BBC One to say new mortgage lending in August had fallen to only £143 million compared to £3 billion in July.

Pym then went on to say that meant that only 1,200 new mortgages had been made across the UK in August. What Pym had not realised is the figure of £143 million was a net figure ie the difference between new mortgage loans made and old ones repaid. In fact the number of new mortgages approved in August was 32,000, compared to 33,000 in July.

BBC News executives will be hoping that Stephanie Flanders will soon come back from maternity leave so Pym can be shuffled off to where his reports can be recorded and checked.

Alex Ritson on Newsnight

Alex Ritson presented the lead report on Newsnight on 18th September 2008 telling viewers the FSA had banned short selling of shares on the London Stock Exchange. It had not. It had banned short selling of just a few financial and banking shares on the LSE.

Ritson then went off to the pub to ask drinkers what they thought of the short selling ban.

Hundreds of BBC staff off on an American jolly

The Guido Fawkes website reports a Democratic Party member in the United States has told them that the BBC has a bigger presence at the US conventions than any domestic broadcaster - more than ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox or PBS.

The BBC fails to bid for any UK cricket rights

The BBC failed to bid for any domestic cricket rights in the ECB's round of rights running from 2010 to 2013.

The BBC could have bid say £100 for the rights to broadcast one or two Test matches each year during the four year period but couldn't even be bothered to do that.

What it did do was put out the following statement after Giles Clarke of the ECB criticised it: "The BBC is astonished by the comments by the ECB. We've always said any bid for live Test cricket was subject to value for money and fitting into scheduling and in our view neither of these criteria were met. 'We have consistently argued that not having cricket as a listed event puts it out of the reach of all terrestrial broadcasters. That's the ECB's choice and they are entitled to it, but it's absurd to blame the BBC for this outcome."

A listed event is one which for which BBC One, BBC Two, ITV1 or Channel 4 have first choice rights. But the BBC was not precluded from bidding. It could have just bid for the rights for a few matches. The BBC cannot say that rights would not be value for money if it did not bid and therefore does not know the price at which the ECB would have awarded it or refused it any rights.

The BBC is also able to schedule cricket matches having several available TV channels.

BBC bosses get 17% pay increases

The lightweight group of individuals at the head of the BBC were awarded a 17% pay increase in 2007.

Head of "Vision", Jana Bennett, had a pay rise from £433,000 to £536,000. She's the one responsible for the state of BBC TV recently - and the one who was criticised for her lack of curiosity in the Crowngate affair - as well as presiding over most of the BBC phone-in scandals.

Website boss, Ashley Highfield, got a £107,000 rise, even though the website went £36 million over budget.

The problem with the BBC and with British TV continues to be the lack of talent throughout. It is probably too late to do much about that now. But there is no need for the BBC to continue to have a wall of money to splash on ever-increasing salaries on BBC chiefs, presenters and other staff.

Tom Symonds gets thousands and millions muddled up

The 6 o'clock news on Radio 4 on 6th June 2008 led with a report claiming bonus payments of £734 million had been paid to three senior executives at the state-owned railway company, Network Rail. The BBC reporter, Tom Symonds, was out by over £732 million. The three executives were awarded bonuses of £1.4 million. The innumerate Symonds had got thousands and millions muddled up and also hadn't noticed "long-term bonuses" which the executives had also received.

Would the BBC have led their news with this item if Symonds knew the difference between thousands and millions?

Incorrect court verdict

On 22nd May 2008, BBC News reported the verdict in the trial for the murder of special constable Nisah Patel-Nasri.

The jury were still deliberating on the evidence at the time.

Advertising on the BBC

The BBC's domestic services are not allowed to sell advertising. Clear enough you might think.

But the BBC has just been found out selling "sponsorship packages" to live events. Children In Need openly flogs off on-air credits in return for payments to the charity.

The BBC Trust, charged with keeping an eye on such shenanigans presumably didn't know about any of this. Now they do and they will have to issue clear instructions to BBC management.

Update: On 21st July 2008, the BBC Trust found that BBC's event sponsorship breached editorial guidelines.

"The Trust has concluded that several of the editorial guidelines were breached and the editorial integrity of the BBC compromised by giving the impression to licence fee payers via Sports Personality of the Year that part of a BBC service had been sponsored," said the BBC Trust.

The BBC Trust has requested "immediate action" to ensure that "breaches of the kind" are not repeated, including for Sports Personality of the Year 2008.

The nationalisation of Northern Rock

At around 3pm on Sunday 17th February 2008 the Treasury announced that it would nationalise Northern Rock. It said there would be a press conference at the Treasury at 4pm.

Even though the news conference started fifteen minutes late the BBC hadn't managed to set up a connection with the studio and only Sky News carried the news conference live. While the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling was explaining his plans, Rory Cellan-Jones, a BBC technology reporter, was sent into the News 24 studio to speculate about what he might be saying while Sky News viewers were hearing the announcement directly.

News 24 kept replaying the same old VT over and over again. A picture of someone cleaning the window of a Northern Rock branch was shown several times - as was a picture of a pink train with Northern Rock printed on the side - in one case twice within two minutes.

At around 4.30pm the BBC managed to get a recording of the press conference on air but then chose to misspell the name of Alistair Darling in a caption. Presumably not to show any political bias they then misspelled the name of the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, when he appeared on screen later on to comment on the announcement.

Jonathan Ross presents the Baftas

The BBC meekly agreed to pay Jonathan Ross £100,000 to present the prizes at the Baftas, handed out for movies, at a kind of prelude to the Oscars in Hollywood later in the year.

Ross obviously wasn't content with the £6 million a year he plucks from the BBC's wall of money and wanted a little more to top up his overflowing bank account.

Few Hollywood stars bothered to show up for the event - even the ones nominated for awards. Ross started the show offering a series of crude anecdotes. Technical staff providing the broadcast to viewers on BBC One obviously weren't offered an extra £100,000 for showing up. The audio quality of the first several minutes were dreadful as if Ross's microphone had been set up at behind the audience. The BBC couldn't be bothered to add a caption explaining the poor audio quality was their fault or saying whether they would resolve the problem later in the broadcast.

The prize winners had already been released when the the BBC got around to showing the recording. Just 3.5 million viewers watched the first half. Stephen Fry, who had been replaced as the presenter of the show was ironically on ITV1 in his own drama series, Kingdom, at the same time. 5.4 million viewers watched that.

The show was interrupted for BBC trailers and a news bulletin at 10pm. Viewers were not told when it would be back. When it did return there were just 2.9 million left watching.

Jérôme Kerviel and the €4.9 billion "fraud" at Société Générale

In January 2008, Société Générale, a large French bank found out a futures trader had exceeded his trading limits. He had presumably falsified bank records to do this. The management rushed to close out the trading positions and reported a loss of €4.9 billion on Thursday 24th January, claiming unconvincingly this was a "fraud".

BBC News accepted the claim of the French bank and reported that the trader, named as Jérôme Kerviel, was responsible for the fraud - not the alleged fraud - not that he was accused of fraud - but of fraud. They continued to refer to the "fraud" until Tuesday 28th January.

More reliable news sources were more circumspect. The Financial Times didn't mention fraud in its lead article.

The Wall Street Journal and The Daily Telegraph referred to an "alleged fraud". The New York Times reportedly accurately "Société Générale accused Mr Kerviel of fraudulent falsification of banking records".

Le Monde called Kerviel "un trader supposé escroc" - an alleged fraudulent trader.

The French prosecutor did not attempt to have Kerviel charged with fraud but only with "attempted fraud".

When Kerviel was eventually charged the preliminary charge sheet omitted mention of either fraud or attempted fraud. Kerviel was released under judicial supervision and charged with breach of trust, falsifying documents and breaching computer security.

Once again, BBC News was negligent in not properly understanding the events they were reporting, accepting without thought the claims made by others and misleading its licence payers.

Missing interest rates

On 22nd January 2008, the US Federal Reserve slashed interest rates by 3/4% to 3.5%.

The BBC's TV news at 6pm chose this item as its first item but failed to mention either the amount of the reduction or the new rate during the whole show.

Viewers were told that the reduction was the biggest since 1984. Warren Myers, a trader in the New York Stock Exchange said that many people thought change wasn't big enough. Hugh Pym, a BBC reporter, told us that stock markets has "continued to slide" before the cut. Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor, had finally agreed to give his report standing on a street corner somewhere in the City instead of from the studio. He told us that expectations were of a smaller interest rate cut in the UK of 1/4% at a later date.

The BBC today: is it honest and competent? - 2007 and earlier