Lord Helmet said:

Bah. I don’t know about a free speech issue. Don’t they say “he who pays the piper calls the tunes”?

I mean if the stuff he said was bad enough to get viewers all upset and maybe even advertisers then its a business decision or maybe they decided it was bad for the image. It’s not like free speech gets you a free pass to say stuff at your job and not get fired or to say stuff on a show and now have the owner of the station decide to fire you, right?

The BBC does not have advertisers. It’s a government chartered organization that is supported by a combination of grants and funding from licenses (in the UK you have to pay for a television license for each TV) and a small amount of revenue from royalties on their content shown abroad.

It’s not a private company like other television stations. As RBR explained, they’re supposed to be an open forum for free speech and opposing viewpoints. They’re also supposed to maintain good standards for quality and content and not be too offensive and such. I can see how that is a problem or at least a fine line to walk. I disagree with this too because this guy was clearly just being over the top as a character. Also, I applaud anyone who lampoons and disrespects psychics.

        Stingray said:

“The series was dropped after Wooton (as Ghostman) appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. During the show, which also had Nicole Kidman and David Schwimmer as guests, he made a number of jokes referring to ‘Jews, cancer patients and Hitler’[1].
The resulting controversy resulted in the BBC being forced to apologise to 350 viewers.”

I sense a genuine free speech failure.

Bah. I don’t know about a free speech issue. Don’t they say “he who pays the piper calls the tunes”?

I mean if the stuff he said was bad enough to get viewers all upset and maybe even advertisers then its a business decision or maybe they decided it was bad for the image. It’s not like free speech gets you a free pass to say stuff at your job and not get fired or to say stuff on a show and now have the owner of the station decide to fire you, right?

        Stingray said:

“The series was dropped after Wooton (as Ghostman) appeared on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. During the show, which also had Nicole Kidman and David Schwimmer as guests, he made a number of jokes referring to ‘Jews, cancer patients and Hitler’[1].
The resulting controversy resulted in the BBC being forced to apologise to 350 viewers.”

I sense a genuine free speech failure.

One of the biggest issues with the BBC (and I think with society in general for that matter) is that they are tasked with providing varied points of view and content while promoting freedom of expression, but they are also supposed to avoid hate speech, insulting statements, statements which offend people or groups or which are considered generally offensive or distasteful. Yet, they do not seem to realize these two tasks are mutually exclusive.

The point of the show was to be a ridiculous parody of a psychic and it was very good while it lasted.

I sense a genuine free speech failure.