Comedian Russell Brand and talk show host Jonathan Ross have been suspended by the BBC for their offensive prank call to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. There have been calls for them to be sacked. Whatever the outcome of this case, I hope broadcasters everywhere take note. There is a line that can be - and in this case has been - crossed in the name of "entertainment". Prank and gotcha calls often come at a cost to somebody's dignity and privacy. In the UK, there's also the mitigating factor that the BBC is funded by licence-fee payers (me included). Ross, who hosts a late-night chat and variety show, is on a 6 million-pounds-a-year contract, and Brand reportedly earns 400,000 pounds and was regarded as a "star signing" for the BBC. The average annual pay packet is about 25,000 pounds. The duo repeatedly rang Sachs's answering machine telling him Brand had slept with the actor's granddaughter. They later suggested that Sachs might kill himself after hearing the news, and they joked about breaking into his house and sexually abusing him. The pre-recorded program went to air after being approved by a senior BBC executive. One can only imagine the personal embarrassment to the woman in question, 23-year-old Georgina Baillie, who has a right to expect such matters to remain private. However, her thoughts are with her grandfather, who has no need nor, I would imagine, any desire to hear about her sex life. "What's funny about humiliating a lovely old man who has never harmed anyone in his life," she says. "My grandfather is really upset and says he wants the whole situation to end. It has been awful for him." Moreover, it's been a dark episode in the history the BBC and broadcasting in general.
Update:Brand has quit his BBC Radio 2 program and taken full responsibility for the incident. Presumably, this will take some heat off the highly paid Ross - who, let's not forget, was the first the make the offensive remark to Sachs.