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I spent a few days this week at King’s College, Cambridge at the convention of the Royal Television Society, a gathering of powerful people in the UK industry. Since several institutions there helped to make Russell Brand famous, there were some awkward moments.
Alex Mahon, chief executive of Channel 4, noted that “terrible behaviour towards women was historically tolerated in our industry”. The network broadcast an investigation into the disgraced comic last week that included accusations by four women that he committed rape and sexual assault at the height of his fame between 2006 and 2013. Brand denies these allegations.
Channel 4 originally helped to turn Brand from a stand-up comic into a fast-talking trickster who waltzed his way through the media by employing him as a presenter on a reality show spin-off. The BBC then used him as a radio host before he resigned over a squalid stunt in 2008. At the least, broadcasting empowered him to become, as he puts it, “very, very promiscuous”.
Although hands are dutifully being wrung, Mahon is right. Many industries used to tolerate abuse of women, and even encourage it as a hazing ritual. Many men took advantage of that to push their sexual luck. But television, in the UK and many other places, enabled it in a particular manner.
Tim Davie, BBC director-general, compared TV to other “high adrenaline” environments such as operating theatres and investment bank trading floors. When teams led by stars work under pressure and against the clock, it can be used to excuse abuse. A boss surrounded by acolytes is a dangerous combination.
It is true of hospitals. About 30 per cent of female surgeons working in UK hospitals, including many consultants, said in a study this month that they had been sexually assaulted (compared with 7 per cent of male surgeons). There have also been abuses in hedge funds and at banks, which are full of self-indulgent revenue generators.
Television takes this recipe and sprinkles on celebrity. The sociologist Max Weber described the “charismatic authority” of leaders who are treated as having superhuman or exceptional powers. Weber cited prophets, “leaders in the hunt, and heroes in war” as examples but he could also (had he been writing a few decades later) have included TV personalities.
On-screen presenting is a peculiar job, requiring a quick wit and the ability to cajole and interview guests, with a producer whispering instructions into your ear. But a lot of the work is done behind the scenes by writers and fixers, and teams whose job is to make programmes run smoothly. There are many professionals working invisibly to help the “talent” be charming.
I benefited in a small way this week when moderating a panel at the RTS. It is the kind of thing journalists often do, and we have to scribble notes and try to work out what to ask. But the RTS is a TV event and runs by TV rules, so I was given a nicely crafted script, along with polished slides, to help us all entertain the audience.
Presenters are feted for what Weber called the “gift of grace”, and some exploit it. They need not reach the depths of which Brand is accused: it can be ordinary nastiness. Jimmy Fallon, the US talk show host, apologised this month after accusations of “erratic behaviour” towards staff: “If I ever mistreated anybody, or made you feel bad, that was not my goal.”
Brand always had charisma: that, more than comic originality or political insight, was his genius: it was difficult to take your eyes off him, even when he was making little sense. When he was finally dropped by broadcasters, it proved to be a transferable skill: he ported his leftwing schtick into being an online influencer and anti-establishment conspiracy theorist.
YouTube this week turned off advertising from Brand’s channel, which has 6.6mn subscribers. On it, he chats to guests such as Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, attacks Covid vaccine makers and speculates about unidentified flying objects. It is a quixotic brew of half-truths and comic satire that is treated seriously by many of his cult followers.
But the mainstream media (which Brand rails against today) can hardly complain from Cambridge. The actor and writer Emma Thompson appeared at the RTS to praise television’s influence on her: “It developed me, it trained me . . . I loved it and still love it,” she said. Fair enough, but it also trained Brand to be an amoral populist.
He now spouts weirdness on the internet, but he was not rigorously fact checked in the past: broadcasters used his status as a comic as a get-out clause. Even by his own admission, they permitted him to exploit relentlessly the sexual opportunities of presenting. Now, they are shocked that gambling was going on in the casino.
Television’s responsibility is to make presenters (and others) behave gracefully in the truest sense, not just to polish their charisma. You can hardly call yourself a public service broadcaster if you fail that test.
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