Brand Devaluation
October 27th, 2008 by Rob Brown 
Against my better judgement I listened to the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand radio debacle, not on the radio you understand but on Youtube. To put this in context I should say that the Jonathan Ross show on Friday night is one of my few ‘appointments to view’ on tv these days. I’m not a big fan of Russell Brand - he’s very clever, I like reading his column in The Guardian but I find him almost impossible to listen to.
If you are new to this story, on Brand’s Radio 2 Saturday night show, Ross and Brand left a string of offensive answerphone messages for 78-year-old Fawlty Towers star, Andrew Sachs. They claimed, using slightly more direct language, Brand had slept with Mr Sachs’ 23-year-old granddaughter.What I heard of the excerpts from Brand’s radio show was not what I’d expected. We expect the f-word from both Ross and Brand and that’s fine, we want sharpness but what I heard was akin to bullying. What was really embarrassing was that it sounded very much like they were trying to outdo each other in terms of shock value. It felt very much like Ross (47) was trying too hard to hold onto his crown as the emperor of edge and that’s just well…not at all cool.
We want Jonathan Ross to be cool. That’s part of his brand and we all pay a lot of money for it and I’m not sure I want to any more.
Tags: , Andrew Sachs, brand, Jonathan Ross, Radio 2, Ross, Russell Brand, YouTube
October 28th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Michele Hanson writes well about the debacle, referring quaintly but aptly to Ross and Brand as “toads”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/28/russell-brand-jonathan-ross
When a comedian’s shock tactics become personal they stop being funny. All the great comic shockers - Monty Python, Bill Hicks, et al - overstepped the mark often, but the targets tended to be some branch of the establishment, not individuals.
I don’t recall Morecambe and Wise ridiculing their guests sexually and they got viewing figures that Ross and Brand could only fantasise about.
October 28th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Jon I agree on every point. It was personal and aimed at a very easy target - who wasn’t even there to respond. What concerns me as the media furore grows is that that someone in production or management will take the rap and Brand and Ross will walk free. We need to understand that if the talent is a big enough name they tend to call the shots and as a result should take the consequences.
October 28th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Brand & Ross have gone over that magic line, a radio show to far, getting personal & in bad taste. The media furore will increase with the news today that Ofcom are to investigate. We will see plenty of very dark glasses from Brand, I must expected much more of Jonathan Ross.
October 29th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Expect 4 Poofs and a Piano to play ‘Sorry seems to be the hardest word’ on Friday…………
October 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
He’s suspended now so it will probably be repeats of Starsky and Hutch on Fri night
Sad thing is that JR used to be an iconoclast, pushing the boundaries in an innovative way in TV, trying new formats, even discovering new talents such as Vic and Bob.
Now he just seems to be collecting the cheques and saying rude words
Smug, bloated, complacent - just like the image at the top of the page!
Russell Brand will go from strength to strength, though, this kind of thing is his ‘brand’
October 30th, 2008 at 11:52 am
[…] me there are two fascinating questions about the Brand and Ross debacle. Why did they put out the show with the item in when it wasn’t live and why did the […]
October 31st, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I know it’s another debate…but those ‘4 Poofs and a Piano’ troop really get my goat.
Why is it OK to use the term ‘poof’ on TV? The fact that it’s prime time national TV makes it even worse.
As a gay man am I supposed to just ‘have a sense of humour’ over the use of this derogatory term?
Double standards everywhere in this industry…