Brand and Ross: Blown out of proportion much?

Russell Brand & Jonathan Ross: at the centre of the controversy

It seems a little ironic to me that the people who’ve been held accountable for the prank phone calls have been hurt more than the two people the calls affected – Andrew Sachs and Georgina Baillie. After originally calling for Brand and Ross to be sacked, last week Baillie called for them to be reinstated. She now says the resignation and suspension were out of proportion.

If anything, the burlesque Satanic Sluts dancer has benefited from the calls made to her grandfather. She no doubt received a nice paycheque for her exclusive interview with The Sun, and the interviews that have followed. In an interview with the Sunday Times this weekend, she mentioned acting ambitions; if Rebecca Loos can become a celebrity for claiming she had an affair with David Beckham, surely Baillie can land some roles for actually doing the deed with Brand.

And how badly was Andrew Sachs hurt by the prank calls? The BBC contacted Sachs before the segment aired, and asked him what he thought. His response? “It’s a bit crude, isn’t it?” and admitted he’d rather they didn’t broadcast it. He was no doubt annoyed that the BBC ignored him, but having been an actor for almost fifty years he’s probably used to not everything going his way when dealing with the media. Once Brand resigned and Ross was suspended, Sachs said he considered the matter closed.

Naturally, that has not been the case. How could it be when the media’s response is what made the prank calls a scandal in the first place? When the segment was originally broadcast on October 18th, to an audience of around 400,000, only two people complained. The other 40,000 complaints have come in the last fortnight, following an article about the calls in the Mail on Sunday eight days after they’d aired.

When the segment was originally broadcast, only two people complained. The other 40,000 complaints have come in the last fortnight

For the record, I’ve listened to the segment on YouTube and found it quite funny. It’s actually the only thing Russell Brand’s done that’s ever made me laugh. But I’d be the first to admit I have a controversial sense of humour, and can understand that not everyone saw the funny side. Having said that, I wonder how many of the 40,000 whiners actually bothered listening to what Brand and Ross had said? My guess is most of the complaints were registered based on newspaper reports. I noticed when I listened to the segment that the calls were childish rather than malicious.

Given that The Russell Brand Show is listened to by hundreds of thousands of people, and Friday Night With Jonathan Ross gets an audience of millions, I think it’s safe to say more people are upset with their resignation and suspension than the messages they left on Andrew Sachs’ answer phone.

The TV licence fee has also been caught up in the furore, with numerous people complaining about funding Ross’s £18million contract. Personally, I think a bigger waste of TV licensing revenue is the letters sent to students threatening to hunt us down if we dare to watch TV illegally. The fact remains that no one has Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross forced on them any more than they’re forced to watch Strictly Come Dancing or Eastenders. If any lesson is to be learned from this, surely it’s how powerful an article in the Mail on Sunday can be.

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