Did the Social Web ‘do’ for Ross & Brand?
October 30th, 2008 by Rob Brown
For 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 furore gather so much momentum in such a short time over a week after the broadcast?
Why was it broadcast? Any fool could have guessed there would be an issue and there were some very experienced heads in the approval chain. I believe that the reason for broadcasting may lie in the fact that by recording the messages on an answer machine the comments were already potentially in the public domain. With the social web anyone can publish and Ross and Brand realised that. By not broadcasting they would have acknowledged fault and the recording could still reach the public via the web. The evidence might be there is in their comments in the a part of the programme that was edited out of the final broadcast:
Ross: “let’s both put on striped t-shirts and break into his house, merely to delete the answerphone message - let’s see what happens. What could go wrong?”
Brand: “Nothing, literally, nothing could go wrong as we smash our way into Andrew Sachs’s house”
Ross: ”break in like cat burglars tonight when he’s in bed”
Brand: “yes while he sleeps”
They must have felt that they had escaped censure when a week went by with no outcry but the press got hold of the story when Andrew Sachs complained. It might have ended there but for the intervention of the social web once more. The recording appeared on YouTube and there have been a million hits - somewhat more than the average listenership for Brand’s show. As the hits on YouTube went up so did the complaints. A week after the show went out there were just 69 complaints to the BBC at the last count there were more than 30,000. A coincidence? I doubt it.
Tags: Andrew Sachs, answer machine, Answerphone, BBC, brand, complaints, Jonathan Ross, phone, phone call, Radio 2, Ross, Russell Brand, Sachs, Social Web, UGC, Web 2.0, YouTube
October 30th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Hmm. While there’s no doubt that ‘hype generators’ like YouTube and Twitter (’brand’ ‘ross’ and ‘russell’ and ’sachs’ have all trended in the past few days) might have sped up the fuss, but when you say ‘As the hits on YouTube went up so did the complaints’ I’m not convinced that YouTube is the outlet where the thousands of complainers caught wind of the whole debacle. Have you read any YT comments recently? It’s not exactly a forum for the easily shocked. The Mary Whitehouse 2.0 reactionaries who’ve been doing ridiculous things like signing petitions don’t normally consult primary sources, I’d wager they got their info from the (spit) Daily Mail messageboard. And if that nasty corner of the internet counts as social media, we’re all done for!
October 30th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Old media may have whipped up the frenzy and the complaints haven’t come from Gen Y, I agree. I just don’t believe that the issue would have gained impetus if people hadn’t been discussing it, sharing views and ultimately listening to the broadcast on-line. Less than a hundred original listeners complained. I very much doubt that all 30,000 of this weeks ‘incensed’ have even heard the broadcast but it’s a big number and those that did listen were able to because of web 2.
October 31st, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Interesting post - I have found ‘Sachsgate’ to be one of the most irritating stories to have hit the media in recent times. Initially, there were only two complaints – it took ten days for it to truly gather pace. This crisis was solely created by our tabloid newspapers which all went on a witch hunt against the BBC, Ross and Brand.
It’s true that the piece was in bad taste but I don’t think a case of misjudgement warrants one of the country’s finest entertainers being fired.
Five Live Drive devoted more than an hour to the topic last night as it has every night. The Today Programme has had several features on it as has almost every single radio station in the country. I think the fact that it was played over and over again on various news channels is the very reason there have been so many complaints. I don’t think YouTube is to blame on this one.
It’s a real shame that a talented individual like Lesley Douglas had to tender her resignation over someone else’s mistake. I think the BBC will suffer from that and it surely must investigate its own editorial processes but Lesley definitely shouldn’t have gone.
I hope this story is now dead but I fear it may rear its ugly head yet again!
October 31st, 2008 at 3:53 pm
and the FTSE rises in the week when media isn’t O/D’ing on the credit crunch. Just a coincidence!
October 31st, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Rob,
It was the mainstream media that drove this issue. As hard as it is for social media proponents to accept, traditional media is still alive and well. This isn’t another case of Trent Lott, this issue was driven by traditional media (with an agenda admittedly).
Of course there’s cross over between traditional and online media, but let’s not try and give the online world the credit for everything when it’s not warranted. We live in a complex world, it’s never that simple
Tom
November 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am
I also wonder how much was the Red Tops helped to whip up the story using the opportunity to get back at Ross. It has been reported in sevrrel outlets this week that he is known for firing off letters from a top London law firm to remind the media about his and his family’s rights towards privacy. Was what he and Brand did not an invasion of privacy??