In the know ?

The Daily Mail is having something of an ambiguity crisis over Brand., Walliams, et al. Who knew what, when ?

How did Walliams cling on to his showbiz chums? String of celebrities who appeared on podcast months before allegations emerged of his predatory behaviour go quiet

BRYONY GORDON: The brave women who helped convict Russell Brand have allowed me to acknowledge the truth about my own experiences with him when I was 25

How ITV's top bosses fell under the spell of 'vile' rapist Russell Brand: ALISON BOSHOFF

Revealed: The TV boss who oversaw the rise of 'predators' at channels

Sharon Osbourne says disgraced comedian Russell Brand - who she has known for 20 years - must 'pay' for his crimes after he was convicted of rape and sexual assault

A decade of debauchery: The Noughties were the years Russell Brand, David Walliams and their celebrity cronies were at their sleaziest. KATIE HIND witnessed it all - and had her own lucky escapes

G'day, cobber

Here's another top BBC News job in Sydney:  "You will primarily focus on producing and developing our News Daily newsletter for hundreds of thousands of engaged readers in the UK."

Yes, this Senior Journalist will shape how the UK wakes up from a ringside seat in Australia's largest city. 

Entertainingly, the base is simply described as 'Ultimo'; so far I can find no public announcement of new accommodation for the BBC operation in Blue Street, North Sydney; maybe there's a deal with the ABC.

 

Plausible

The BBC's expensive US law team got a fair old kicking from Judge Jeffrey T Kuntz, a Trump appointee, yesterday, in his first major intervention since taking over the case in August. 

Whilst dismissing "Count II" against the BBC (because it relies on fair trade legislation, and the BBC, in this matter, doesn't really 'do business' in Florida), the Judge found many of the arguments of Trump's lawyers 'plausible' in support of the main case. 

Here's some bits from the Judge's 40 pages: 

"The news entity created the story. BBC admitted as much by confirming it had edited a video
to make it appear as though President Trump made a statement he never made. And it acknowledged it chose to release the video in a documentary only a week before the 2024 Presidential Election, at the time it would have the most impact. To make sure it was seen in Florida, BBC even emailed U.S. and Florida based commenters with instructions to on how to view the documentary. Whether President Trump can prove these claims and establish he sustained damages at summary judgment or trial is left for another day."

"Trump paints a picture that demonstrates the BBC has a record of allowing the publication of false statements in their portrayal of Trump. BBC asks the Court to put on blinders and treat the Panorama team as if they were blocked off from the rest of the organization, ignorant of everything else going on at BBC. At this procedural stage, the Court simply cannot ignore the circumstantial evidence"

On the splicing together itself: "Editing is often required. However, given the time disparity between the two statements, the distance itself tends toward a plausible inference that BBC knew or should have known that the segment they were creating would not and could not have been a truthful statement. This was not trimming around the edges but creating something different than what was stated in the speech. BBC also had the entire speech available to them for nearly three years by the time of the Documentary."

"The BBC now appears to disagree with the apology issued by the Chairman. BBC’s Chairman admitted that the documentary gave a misleading and mistaken impression that Trump made a direct call for violent action. Strangely enough, BBC strays from that position in the Motion to Dismiss, referring to statements made by January 6 defendants as evidence that the speech may be interpreted as a call to violent action"

"BBC’s own words use “Documentary” in place of the twelve-second segment. BBC routinely conflates the two things. The Documentary can have protected expressions of opinion, but what is relevant to our inquiry is the spliced segment. That is what is the subject of the litigation, the Documentary being the vessel for the alleged false statement"

Allan Little (1)

“Being a foreign correspondent seemed to me to be a way of indefinitely extending your adolescence without having to get a real job. It was hard work but it didn’t feel like working, it felt like being paid to go on adventures in foreign and exotic parts of the world that you learn an enormous amount from.”

Thus Allan Little, who will finally exit BBC News at the end of the year. 

Allan was born in Dunragit, Wigtownshire, and brought up in Glenluce; his father joined the RAF at 17, and there was an airfield at West Freugh, and regular bomb trials in Luce Bay. Allan went to Stranraer Academy where he was 'Captain' (left). He'd planned to study physics and maths at Edinburgh, but changed to history and politics in Freshers' Week.  He'd been reading "Inside The Third Reich" by William Shirer, CBS correspondent man in Germany in the 40s, and then found himself watching the BBC's Tim Sebastian on tv, covering the military coup in Poland. “There was only one reporter in the country when they sealed the borders, Tim Sebastian - he became famous because he was on every news bulletin for the next few weeks."

So to BBC Radio Scotland as a researcher (“Hated it, phone-bashing for other journalists”). His first Radio Times credits were on a BBC Scotland/BBC2 series called 'Open to question'. Allan's exit strategy was to secure a place on the BBC Local Radio Reporter scheme - some basic training, then two years learning on the job at Radio Solent.  Thence to the Today programme, one of many tyros looking for an assigment abroad. Justin Webb has noted "On the days when I was a reporter on the Today Programme in the 1980s there would be many, many more people – that was the upside – the downside was they would all be drunk."

In 1989, he was pleading with his editor Phil Harding to cover rapidly changing events in Eastern Europe. He'd been to Czechoslovakia in 1986 (to watch Hearts v Dukla Prague in the UEFA Cup - Dukla won on away goals), so when student trouble brewed in 1989, he could claim contacts and a previous visa. He got there in time for the nightly gatherings of demonstrators in Wencelas Square.....more to follow. 

K.O.

 Understated broadcaster Vernon Kay learning the perils of the big build-up....

tradingaswdr · Vernon Kay

Bunker mentality

 An article by BBC Media and Arts Correspondent David Sillito, "What happens if all the lights go out ? This is the plan for a 'Black Sky' event" has made waves in the field of 'emergency broadcasting'. 

David states "Only a small number of staff know the full details, but from what I have gleaned, about 100 people in the BBC will run a special emergency radio studio. It will have secure lines of communication not dependent on the internet, and fuel, water and food to ensure it can operate without resupply for at least three days."

On an insider's tour of the BBC Broadcasting House extension in the 70s, I was allowed to glance into two connecting sub-basement rooms - one with bunk beds, basic toilet and kitchen facilities, and shelves of tinned food;  the other with a range of LPs (long-playing records) next to a small studio desk with 'grams' (record players). I wasn't allowed to flick through the musical choices that might console a nation frying on the outside, but the first was by Alma Cogan. 

During my time in Broadcasting House, I got to know the identities of some of the chosen few (not 100) who would head 'downstairs' rather than out of the building to fend for themselves when the flag went up. I was never envious; the bunker still relied on external air, which in some forms of warfare could be a real problem. 

In later life, I became part of the project rebuilding a new Broadcasting House, largely on the footprint of that old extension. The demolition wasn't easy; we had to prepare for new 26m piles to be 'vibrated' into the ground. Did we have to use dynamite on the bunker ?  I might have been nearby when one Friday afternoon I heard our construction lead trying to reassure a shaken Director of Radio, and his description of the work underway was economical. 

There was no new bunker in the new build. 

Traitorous rising

The first episode of this year's The Celebrity Traitors on BBC1 has consolidated to 17.2m over the 28 days since first transmission. That's nearly double the initial overnight audience of 8.9m, and 1.5m up on the seven day figure. 

Sad and sorry

 

It reads like there's been a bit more hand-to-hand fighting over BBC Radio cuts than we might have guessed. Today's edition of Feedback is the first to reveal that Jonathan Wall, Controller of BBC Sounds, was also put in charge of all network speech radio in June - a role held by the Controller of Radio 4 and 4 Extra, Mohit Bakaya since May 2022. Presumably, by the time we get to the next transparent declaration of top salaries, we all be able to see some adjustments - Mo was ahead in 2024, and they were level in 2025. 

There was no news of a vacancy in June, but it's hard to understand why the change wasn't made public; TV made their move in 2020, putting iPlayer boss Dan McGolpin in charge of channels as well. 

Jonathan, (Altrincham Grammar, BA media and communications, Birmingham Polytechnic/University of Central England, and Diploma in broadcast journalism, Falmouth) was repeatedly "sad and sorry" about the cuts; he told Feedback "the decisions are being made by people who love radio, not by bureaucrats", and that the replacement for You and Yours would be cheaper, but the cuts were "about depth and volume, not quality".

On 4 Extra his line was "We will lean in to all the curation experiences we can do on Sounds that allow that joyful serendipity of content discovery". He was pushed into acknowledging that savings on rights with the closure of 4 Extra will mean a smaller archive on Sounds. 

Status report

Time has made it clear that Matt Brittin was really hoping for a Bigger Cheese to run BBC News.  Full Board positions were kept open - until he decided that Rachel Jupp was his best option. 

Ahead of Rachel's appointment, only three of the four 'executive' positions on the main board were fillerd - DG Matt Brittin, DDG Rhodri Talfan Davies, and Chief Financial Officer Bérangère Michel. 

Kate Phillips was confirmed as Chief Content Officer back in June 2025, by Tim Davie. She replaced Charlotte Moore - but didn't get a seat on the main Board until this Tuesday. CEO News Deobrah Turness was on the main board until November 2025.  

Flipping Clive

Smart guy, Clive Myrie, but, if he was writing his own scripts last night on the Six and Ten, I'd have taken a pen to 'flipping'. 

Historically, 'flipping' in the UK is principally used as a subsitute for profanities, where Americans would usually use 'fricking' or 'freaking'. In the 1990s, the Americans invented another use, in 'house flipping',  the practice of buying, renovating, and quickly selling a house for profit.

By the 2000 Presidential election (Bush v Gore), tv graphics had almost universally adopted the convention of mapping states as 'blue' or 'red'. It was then a short, sports-related hop to 'flipping' for changing colour. On this side of the Atlantic, we've stuck with 'win', 'lose', 'gain' and 'change hands'. And so should Clive.