Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Ross a dead loss? Someone at the Daily Telegraph buys the Radio Times

I knew it. I knew the Telegraph had just started to lift large chunks of its copy from the Radio Times - last month, the leading article started with the words "So, a recession has fetched up on the economic scene...", which was a dead giveaway. Today, they're running a large chunk of Mark Lawson's words from the TV listings guide:

Jonathan Ross will find it "pretty unbearable" when he returns to work, BBC presenter Mark Lawson has predicted.

Because, it says here, Mark Lawson plans to stand outside his dressing room yelling "Andrew Sachs, Brand resigns" over and over again.

Oh - hang on, it doesn't:
Speaking about Ross's return, Lawson told the Radio Times: "I think he has probably the biggest PR problem any TV person has ever had: the controversy doesn't revolve around one particular remark he made, but his whole act.

"I don't see how he can win this. Anyone who's been through even a minor scare over matters of taste at the BBC knows it's pretty horrible...

"I think Ross is going to find it pretty unbearable.

"So I think it will quite quickly suit both parties to find a way for him to leave the BBC."

...concluded Lawson, as he slipped a buff folder with the words "Programme idea: Friday Night With Mark Lawson" onto Jay Hunt's desk.

Mark Lawson believes that Ross has the biggest PR problem ever anyone on TV has ever, ever, ever faced. What about Peter Adamson when he was trying to balance the charges of getting over-friendly with kids at the swimming pool while being Len Fairclough? And slagging off other members of the cast in the press after he'd been found not guilty? Or Michael Barrymore's entire career for the last decade? Or how about when the tabloids found out Leslie Grantham was wanking onto the internet? Or that he'd killed a taxi driver? Or John Leslie?


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being Len Fairclough is, incidentally, a great idea for a sequel to Being John Malkovich

Paul said...

When did Leslie Grantham kill John Leslie? Did I miss something?

Anonymous said...

Man, that was the best episode of Scavengers EVER.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

Yeah, to be fair, the PR team did do a pretty good job of clearing up the Grantham-murdering-Leslie story. But that reanimated corpse didn't come cheap.

Anonymous said...

I heard it needed a voodoo ritual that, to the uninitiated, looked a bit like a man in a pirate outfit tossing one off.

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