Jonathan Ross suspended without pay and Brand resigns

Yep - Inspector Sands is dead on. Making and original show on Sky, Living or the UKTV (now rebranded) channels is kind of a career ending move still - unless you do it in addition to a main gig on a terrestrial.

As for the bigger picture :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/03/bbc-licencefee-payers

Very good article.

Hardly a surprise that the Torygraph is BBC bashing though is it... (The licence-fee has always been a bug bear of their's hasn't it?)

Quite. I just thought it might spare us all having to read, "Daily Hail, Fail and Wail" variants from certain prolific posters though.

My opinion / take on this is that if it had just been Russell Brand doing this, he would have got into trouble and that would have been the end of it. I think that certain areas of society ( Daily Mail readers ) are so p-d off with the pay J Ross gets, this is what annoyed them more. And as it has been pointed out, it took them a week or so to get into action.

As has been stated, I think part of the problem was the BBC took so long to react to the furore. If they had put their hands up sooner, they prob wouldn't have needed to take " drastic " action.

I'm fed up hearing about this on the news.

They're p-d off with the pay they think he gets!

Anyone know how much money the Daily Mail editorship takes home for sitting on its arse all day reading copy?

It is actually an outrage to think that I pay £140 a year for a TV license and the BBC pay that **** six million a year to behave in such an inappropriate, vulgar way.

It hasn't been blown out of proportion. It's a realisation of the kind of unfunny, talentless fools that dominate the 'comedy' circuit. That people like me are funding.

Largely irrelevant since the Daily Mail isn't funded through taxation.

I thought you were only about 17...

and its not THAT irrelevant stu, if its a larger figure than those heads of the BBC it shows that others within the media are paid more than those at the BBC. Just because they're at the BBC doesn't mean they should get pittance

So you think you don't fund them if they were on ITV or another commerical channel?

Michael Grade said in an interview that he would never have Ross and Brand on live ITV only pre-recorded.

Well Michael Grade is a prize tosser and has done more damage to ITV than Ross and Brand could ever do to the BBC.