Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Pre-recording: that'll keep Jonathan Ross in line

Tim Davie, BBC's head of music and audio, has suggested that when Jonathan Ross returns in January, his Radio 2 programme might be pre-recorded to keep him in line:

"It's a little early to confirm anything at this point. We've said that on January 24 the Jonathan Ross Show will come back. That's the lead assumption," he said.

It is understood that most of Ross's Radio 2 programmes were aired live, but sources have suggested that more may be pre-recorded in future or that the show will be subject to tighter editorial controls.

Ah, yes, pre-recording. Although given that both the TV show where he told Gwyneth Paltrow he'd fuck her and the Russell Brand programme were prerecorded and still went out anyway, it's not clear how.

Davie also had some thoughts about music TV:
Davie added that there was "lots more work to do with music television".

He said shows such as BBC2's celebrity conducting series Maestro and forthcoming Top of the Pops specials were ways of making music appealing to television commissioners.

But didn't Top Of The Pops get cancelled precisely because it wasn't appealing to commissioners, and it only got brought back this Christmas due to complaints from the public rather than out of the love of the commissioners?


2 comments:

Louis Barfe said...

It's baffling, isn't it? How many live Radio 2 shows has Jonathan Ross done without trouble? I suspect that on a pre-record he's more likely to piss about and push his luck, whereas on a live broadcast he knows precisely where the boundaries are.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Exactly - it's a bit like the way you make cars safer for drivers, they'll drive less carefully because they feel confident they've got protection; it adds a layer of 'someone else will sort this out'.

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