Ofcom Fines the BBC £150,000 for Phone Prank Scandal

LONDON: The U.K. regulatory body Ofcom has fined the BBC £150,000 for lewd phones messages left on actor Andrew Sachs’s voicemail by BBC 2 radio personalities Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross.

Ofcom said Russell Brand’s radio show had violated the Broadcast Code and had broadcast "explicit, intimate and confidential information" about Sachs’s granddaughter, Georgina Baillie, without their consent, in programs that aired on October 18 and October 25 last year.  

Ofcom called those phone messages "gratuitously offensive, humiliating and demeaning,” and “unwarrantably and seriously infringed their privacy "

Ofcom identified six underlying flaws in the BBC’s compliance systems:
A lack of clarity about the exact role of a senior figure at the agency that represents Russell Brand, as the executive producer, on behalf of the independent production company.
The failure of the executive producer to attend a BBC Safeguarding Trust compliance course, despite this being a condition of the production contract.
The failure of the Executive Producer to sign off compliance forms for the programs of 18 and 25 October 2008 ,despite this being a condition of the production contract (it was not known whether he signed off previous forms),
No proactive testing and insufficient monitoring of the compliance systems in BBC Audio and Music in general, but especially after Russell Brand became an independent production from May 2008.
An unacceptable conflict of interest for the line producer seconded from the BBC on a part-time basis to the independent production company making Russell Brand.
And a lack of clarity about who at the BBC had editorial oversight of the series.

The BBC Trust released the following statement today:

Ofcom’s decision today relates to a case considered by the BBC Trust’s Editorial Standards Committee (ESC) in November 2008. The Trust regrets that these serious breaches by the BBC have led to a financial penalty being applied by Ofcom and the loss of license fee payers’ money as a result.

The ESC itself concluded that the breaches on the relevant episodes of the Russell Brand Show were serious and that the content was so grossly offensive there was no justification for its broadcast.

Furthermore, the ESC concluded that the comments included in the broadcast represented "an abuse of the privilege given to the BBC to broadcast to its audiences" and "fell far short of the standards the licence fee payer expects of the BBC." It identified three failings – a failure to assert editorial control by Radio 2, a failure to follow the compliance systems in place and a failure of editorial judgement.

The Trust instructed BBC management to undertake a range of remedial actions, including broadcasting an on-air apology, immediately strengthening editorial controls around any program, which represents a high level of risk and ensuring that existing guidelines are complied with.

The Trust’s priority remains ensuring that the highest editorial standards are maintained to safeguard license fee payers from offence and ensuring that individuals’ privacy is not breached.