So, it turns out that everyone working at the BBC is an incompetent fool. Every single one. Well, apart from those BBC employees who subscribe to the CMU Daily. They are the efficient ones. I know this because I just checked. Frankly, if it wasn't for the CMU Daily reading BBC execs the whole Corporation would be filled with fabricated phone ins and misleadingly-edited Royal-family-misrepresenting nonsense.
Yes, the Beeb is trying its best to limit the damage done to its reputation by a string of publicly exposed cock-ups, including the previously reported phone in scam on Blue Peter, and that unfortunate incident at a recent press launch where BBC 1 controller Peter Fincham said that a clip from a forthcoming documentary about the Queen showed her maj storming out of a photo shoot in a huff when, in fact, it showed no such thing (it had been edited to look that way by the show's makers RDF). Things are hotting up because more fake phone ins have now been exposed - ie incidents when viewers were encouraged to phone in on premium phone rates for competitions that had actually closed, or where contestants were actually chosen from other sources. No one is suggesting any actual corruption in relation to any of these incidents - but that means the BBC has to admit instead to incompetence, which is possibly worse.
Director General Mark Thompson has been talking tough about the serious "editorial breaches" that have been committed by his staff, though he has shied from sacking anyone over any of the fuck ups, though the Guardian is reporting that some Beeb execs may as yet be suspended in a bid to satisfy the press, BBC Trust and government broadcasting officials that the Corporation is taking the whole thing very seriously. (You might want to add viewers to that list of people the Beeb have to satisfy, though I'm not sure they really care). Meanwhile all BBC phone in and interactive features and competitions have been suspended while bosses investigate internal procedures - something ITV did ages ago, of course, when it was first revealed just how many viewers were being ripped off by the half assed way premium rate phone in features were being run by TV companies and their phone in service providers.
That said, ITV chief (and former BBC Chairman) Michael Grade did do his bit to take some pressure of his former colleague Thompson by admitting producers across the broadcasting industry were guilty of the kind of slap dash approach being so criticised within the Beeb. He told Newsnight: "It's partly to do with casualisation of the industry, people on short-term contracts under tremendous strain, tremendous pressure. Competitive pressure is enormous".
So, its official, all telly people everywhere are incompetent fools. Apart from, and I can't stress this enough, all the telly people who read CMU Daily. They're great.