The news that Jonathan Ross will be resigning from the BBC is not a surprise to those who are in the know about the media. There had been rumblings of this happening for a few weeks now because of all the issues regarding his own contract, which the BBC would have had to lower significantly. In short though, there are two reasons why he resigned.
The first is the implications of the Sachsgate saga. Throughout 2009 he has been told to rein in some of his jokes and his swearing as the corporation lived in fear of having even more bad press (although they did tons of other things last year that did that instead). Because of this, Ross himself hasn’t been the same as an entertainer and nowhere is this more evident than his Friday night talk show. It’s not as funny or indeed as watchable as it used to be and that isn’t down to Ross’ talent waning, but because he isn’t allowed to do what he wants to do. The only program where he had full control was Film 2010.
I think he also feels that the BBC no longer knows what to do with him, so instead of having more contract negotiations that would have proven awkward, he’s decided to skip all that and jump overboard. The BBC have no other programs they can use Ross in and they haven’t even tried to get him into new ventures for quite a while. It’s almost like they’re embarrassed to have him, especially on a £3 million-a-year contract.
Ross has timed all this to perfection and I can see him moving ship to Channel 4 where he will have full control again of what he’s allowed to do. ITV is also possible but I do think that they’re also trying to avoid being censured and I think they’d be quite brave to take him on.
