My message to Ross

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

The BBC's DG says he wants Ross back, but hints he'll get paid less next time. .

ANDREW MARR: Well there has been one story that's dominated the airwaves this week and that's been the story of course of the BBC itself.

Yet another controversy, yet another failure in editorial controls and yet more questions about how BBC senior executives handle a crisis.

Well the most senior of those executives is of course the Director General Mark Thompson and he is with me now.

Welcome and thank you for coming in.

MARK THOMPSON: Good morning, Andy.

ANDREW MARR: Let's just go back to the timing of this.

You've said on several occasions now that actually the BBC acted quite fast, and yet from the first days that this was all over the newspapers until we finally heard your statement and saw people coming forward from the BBC on the airwaves, there was quite a long gap and there was a sort of sense that there was nobody in charge.

MARK THOMPSON: Well I mean the chronology's like this. Last Sunday, a week ago today, the Mail on Sunday published the story and it came to the attention of senior people in the BBC. By Monday morning, we'd issued a complete and unreserved apology to Andrew Sachs and his family and to the listening public and we'd launched an investigation. Now by the Thursday - that's three days later - the investigation has produced initial, initial findings

ANDREW MARR: Yeah.

MARK THOMPSON: and I've talked to the BBC Trust. The BBC Trust have given me a pretty hard time and come up with a series of points of their own, but also we've acted and you know within, what are we talking about, three days, we think we've essentially got to the bottom of what happened

ANDREW MARR: It's quite a long time, quite a long time - three days - given that you said it took you a nanosecond to see that a really serious breach had occurred. Everybody knew who was responsible in terms of the performance.

MARK THOMPSON: It took the three days to work out precisely what had happened and what we should do and the tough actions we should take

ANDREW MARR: Right.

MARK THOMPSON: but it was hours before we'd

ANDREW MARR: (over) Russell Brand, this man's got to go?

MARK THOMPSON: Well if I may say so, because in a sense any television programme or radio programme is a team effort and the on air you know members of the team have some responsibilities but not total responsibilities - the fundamental editorial responsibility lies with the producer, ultimately with the controller of the station or the channel - we wanted just to spend you know a little bit of time understanding exactly who had done what. But to repeat, within hours of the story appearing, the BBC had got a complete and unreserved apology out. Now people are saying well perhaps you should have put someone up to actually give that apology in person

ANDREW MARR: Yes, no-one did go on and speculate.

MARK THOMPSON: But let's, let's not confuse the matters of substance, which is we knew it was serious, we knew it was totally unacceptable, we knew we had to find out what had happened and we knew we'd have to act. And we did all of that in a very small number of days. Now we may not - and it's rather ironic perhaps for a media organisation - we may not have fed the news cycle you know which was very hungry for interviews and discussion, but to be honest having said, we apologised unreservedly, this was totally unacceptable, we're doing an investigation to find out exactly what happened - we didn't actually have a great deal more to say

ANDREW MARR: Yes.

MARK THOMPSON: � until we'd done that. And we came back in what three days, and I have to say I think the combination of BBC management but also the BBC Trust � I mean there's been some talk about wouldn't it be better perhaps if the BBC was regulated by Ofcom. Now Ofcom does a good job in terms of content regulation, I think they do, but Ofcom will look at this. They will take weeks and months. I mean by, you know within three days of the thing blowing up, the BBC Trust is there, it is requiring actions and all the rest of it. I mean to me, it felt like a pretty active week.

ANDREW MARR: I suppose the point that for instance your predecessor Greg Dyke made on this subject is that in the old days there would have been not only yourself but there would have been a Chairman of the BBC who would have come out and said, "This is unacceptable. This is wrong. We are taking action. Just you wait" and these days there isn't a Chairman of the BBC. There's a Chairman of the Trust, but that's a sort of body off at one side from the main organisation and it has left a kind of gap right at the top.

MARK THOMPSON: I'm unconvinced by that and I think that actually the system we currently have with the BBC Trust, which is independent of the BBC but able to direct management in a way that Ofcom can't - to actually step in and say you must do this, you must do that - I think that, I would hope that the public would feel that given the level of public outrage, the speed with which fundamental action was taken, compared to most British institutions, this was pretty quick and pretty responsive.

ANDREW MARR: Did you feel when you went into that meeting with the Trust that you were talking to people who were in effect your bosses; you were speaking on behalf of the licence payer, real authority?

MARK THOMPSON: (over) They are, they are the representatives of the public and although you know we have a cordial and strong working relationship, it's very different from the meetings we used to have with the BBC governors. They are

ANDREW MARR: Less cosy?

MARK THOMPSON: Definitely less cosy, definitely less cosy. And to be honest, I think in the end that will strengthen the BBC and strengthen the BBC's independence. It won't weaken it.

ANDREW MARR: Jonathan Ross wanted to go on air and apologise and was stopped from doing so. That seems fairly strange.

MARK THOMPSON: I believe that, I believe that's not true.

ANDREW MARR: That's not true?

MARK THOMPSON: Yuh.

ANDREW MARR: Alright. Staying with Jonathan Ross, is anybody, particularly perhaps in this current economic climate, is anybody worth �18 million?

MARK THOMPSON: Well I think - you know and it's quite interesting appearing on phone-ins and looking at the emails coming in and letters coming into the BBC - opinion about everything, including Jonathan Ross, is very divided now.

ANDREW MARR: Yes.

MARK THOMPSON: There are plenty of people saying don't, don't overreact, we like Jonathan Ross, we want outstanding entertainment from the BBC, and I think, you know I hope people would appreciate that we have to strike a balance here. The public want the best entertainment on British television and radio from the BBC. They want the best people. And you know in the 1970s when the BBC you know took Morcambe and Wise from ITV and paid what in those days was regarded as an exorbitant sum, people asked questions. We now have some classic, classic television. The reality is in almost all the areas where the BBC operates, it is in a market for talent. People want the best talent. Almost everyone - it goes for senior managers and it goes for stars - is getting paid less at the BBC

ANDREW MARR: Is that market really there, is that market really there for people like Jonathan Ross or indeed anybody else these days? The commercial side is in terrible trouble with the advertising collapse and so on and a lot of people think the BBC you know is the last organisation left paying huge salaries and there's lots of salaries, as you've seen in the papers today, of executives as well.

MARK THOMPSON: If you compare what BBC people get with - and this is true of on air presenters and it's true of senior executives as well - with their opposite numbers, I get paid significantly less than my opposite number at ITV and Channel Four even though those are the on the face of it much smaller companies. I should get paid less. It's a great privilege to do this job and it's a great privilege to work for the BBC. So typically people come to the BBC. Often if they come from outside they'll take a pay cut - what happened to me when I did this job - and people are happy to do that because of the creative challenges. So

ANDREW MARR: And yet I mean you know everybody reading the papers and looking at these salaries, these are vast salaries! �800,000, you know half a million.

MARK THOMPSON: As I say, but in the context where typically in the private sector I think the Chief Executive or Executive Chairmen of ITV are on about 2 million; last year the Head of Channel Four - 1.3 million. So of course compared to many people's average pay, they seem very substantial. But, as I say, people, the public also want, you know they want the Controller of BBC1 to be the best possible person for that job and if it's an �800 million television network, it's important we have the right person there. Now where I think you're right though, Andy, is the market is changing, and what we do every year is we look very closely at these labour markets. You know what is happening to remuneration in commercial television, commercial radio and the market for stars and talent, and we always try and get the best deal we can when we're striking these deals.

ANDREW MARR: You would not now be paying somebody �6 million a year, would you?

MARK THOMPSON: Well I think the right thing to do is to say as we go forward, we go through periods where there's sharp, upward inflation, but we sometimes go through periods where there's retrenchment, and we look � I mean, to be honest, the BBC, like every other broadcaster, this is quite a difficult period. Inflation is running much higher than the licence fee, you know the sale of commercial property is much harder, so we are looking at all of our expenditure to make sure that if we can save money, we'll do it.

ANDREW MARR: I can see where you're going, but it would be nice to get a yes or no. Would you pay anybody �6 million a year now?

MARK THOMPSON: We never talk about individual contracts

ANDREW MARR: In theory. MARK THOMPSON: � not Jonathan Ross', not yours. But I think we are heading towards a period where it is probably the case that we will be able to secure the best entertainment talent for less than we've been able to do in the last years. The same is true of sports rights, for example.

ANDREW MARR: Do you think Jonathan Ross is going to return to the BBC airwaves?

MARK THOMPSON: I believe � We've now had many, many phonecalls and emails from our viewers and listeners who are very keen that Jonathan should come back. Jonathan is an outstanding broadcaster. What he did, his part in this whole sorry saga, was utterly unacceptable. I believe he recognises that. I've talked to him. I believe I've given him what in effect is a final warning. But, yes, I do hope Jonathan comes back and I think when he does come back the millions of people who like watching his TV programme and listening to him on the radio will be very pleased to welcome him back.

ANDREW MARR: Is this the end for bad taste in the BBC?

MARK THOMPSON: I think one of the things the public want from us is courage about creativity and a willingness to take creative risks, and in the context

ANDREW MARR: All those comments that have been throughout the papers and everywhere about things that were said on Mock the Week, things that have been said on Little Britain, you can reel out about thirty or forty examples of things which in cold print seem very offensive, but those sorts of things are going to continue to be broadcast?

MARK THOMPSON: Well and I think the debate which has been going on frankly for decades about where the boundaries of taste lie in areas like comedy - whether it's unscripted comedy or situation comedy - that debate will continue. Now I'm not saying anything goes and you know every week BBC senior managers are debating individual jokes and individual lines on these programmes, but it's very important to distinguish between that debate - you know sometimes we go a little bit too far, sometimes perhaps we cut things which shouldn't be cut - and what happened on the Russell Brand show.

ANDREW MARR: So there isn't going to be a radical change of direction?

MARK THOMPSON: The Russell Brand show was an outrageous and utterly unacceptable invasion of a family's privacy. And I would say, look, the public want the BBC to have high editorial standards and particularly in matters like the watershed families rely on us to make the right decisions about taste and decency. At the same time, they also want original, exciting, creative programming. You know I and my colleagues have got to try and balance those things and will go on doing that.

ANDREW MARR: So carry on swearing?

MARK THOMPSON: Well I think, I think � I don't think the public believe that the right response to one major you know problem, editorial problem, would be to transform and in some ways to neuter many of the programmes they like. I promise you, we take the business of not offending the public very seriously, but we've also got duties to creativity as well.

ANDREW MARR: Every single newspaper, virtually every single newspaper gave the BBC one heck of a kicking. We have clearly offended a huge number of licence payers and we see on the front page of the Sunday Telegraph, for instance, Conservatives to clip the BBC's wings, to cut the licence fee if they win the next election.

MARK THOMPSON: Interestingly enough, on that last point I got a phonecall from a senior member of the Shadow Cabinet last night to tell me that the story, it's not Conservative policy and the story certainly didn't come from any of them as it were. So I think to be honest

ANDREW MARR: Right. But we've also got warnings from Andrew Burnham about the future of the BBC. The BBC's future and the way it's funded at the moment is now up for grabs in a way that it hasn't been for a long time.

MARK THOMPSON: Well actually, to be honest, I was editing Newsnight on the night when Alan Peacock came into the studio to talk about his report about the likely demise of the licence fee at the BBC I think now twenty years ago. It's not the first time that people have debated the BBC. What I would say though

ANDREW MARR: There is a widespread mood of anger and criticism at the BBC that perhaps there wasn't before.

MARK THOMPSON: I wouldn't claim that this has been necessarily the best week for the BBC in terms of press and public relations since it was founded in the 1920s - I absolutely accept that. However when Ofcom asked the public in a very big, systematic, thorough survey published a few weeks ago about their willingness to pay the licence fee and their sense of the value of the BBC's services in relation to the licence fee, 80% of the UK population are saying they're willing to pay. Beneath this, there is a deep understanding about the value of the BBC. And I have to say right now when we have, on BBC1 we have Little Dorrit, we have Merlin, we have BBC drama performing better than ever before and journalism is probably stronger than it's ever been before, you have to see incidents like this single programme in the context of the whole services delivered by the BBC.

ANDREW MARR: A lot of shrewd, intelligent, well informed people out there think that the BBC is just a much too big, swaggering, arrogant organisation which does need its wings clipped.

MARK THOMPSON: That's sometimes said. I mean the BBC of course, which once was the monopoly broadcaster in this country, now represents a far, far smaller percentage of investment and services. You know compared to the rest of media, the BBC is much smaller than it used to be.

ANDREW MARR: And just briefly, any chance of Lesley Douglas, the Controller of BBC 2 coming back? Radio 2. A lot of people thought that was unfair that she was the one who took the rap.

MARK THOMPSON: Lesley felt because she felt and indeed she was responsible for what was broadcast on Radio 2. I think Lesley was an outstanding controller and a fantastic colleague. I don't rule that out. I don't believe in life time bans. But I have to say you know obviously the right thing now is for us to find a new leader for Radio 2 and to move forward.

ANDREW MARR: Mark Thompson, for now thank you very much indeed.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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