BBC suspends top presenters in row over 'lewd calls'

Oct 29, 2008, 12:57 GMT

London - The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Wednesday suspended two top entertainers in a spiralling row over the broadcasting of lewd comments left on the answer phone of veteran Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs.

Programmes by Jonathan Ross, host of a popular Friday evening TV chat show, and Russell Brand, a comedian, will be taken off air until the BBC has completed its investigations into prank calls they made on the BBC 2 radio channel.

Both contributors had committed a 'severe offence' and were guilty of a 'gross lapse of taste,' the BBC's director-general Mark Thompson said in a statement.

The two men, who draw huge pay packets from the public broadcaster, provoked a storm of protest from viewers and an intervention from Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who described their conduct as 'offensive and inappropriate.'

Ross and Brand, as well as the BBC, have apologized to Sachs, 78, over the comments left on his answerphone in which swear words were used and Ross 'jokingly' alluded to to Brand having slept with Sachs' granddaughter, 23-year-old Georgina Baillie.

Sachs, who gained worldwide fame for his role as the clumsy Spanish waiter Manuel in the Fawlty Towers series, said he had been 'distraught' by the controversy.