Gone Westwood

Gemma White KC's report on Tim Westwood at the BBC is depressing reading. It describes a management culture in which it was clearly felt too risky to write down contemporaneous notes of bad behaviour; and a period in which, for all the outreach and pizza meetings offered by senior management, junior staff felt presenters were invulnerable, and career progression was better aided by keeping quiet.  

Tim started on Radio 1 as a weekend feature - with a rap show on Radio 1, later extended to a Friday show and a Saturday show. Previous weekend workers on Radio 1 included Jimmy Savile; Russell Brand worked weekends at 6Music and Radio 2. 

Radio 1Xtra had started in 2002, and by September 2009 was reaching around 500k listeners weekly. In 2009 Westwood was brought into the BBC 'proper' with a drivetime show and a staff production team. By 2012, when Westwood was removed from that part of the schedule, Radio 1Xtra's audience was up to 1.1m, and management had run out of staff who were prepared to work with the charmless oaf. 

That didn't seem to matter; management memos responded more quickly to press stories than internal or external complaints made directly to them.  Nobody wanted to be the first to pull together the emerging risks of Westwood's continued employment.