- Mon Jan 28, 2002 11:28 pm
#2441
Chris Moyles, Radio 1, 5 & 9 June 2001<br><br>This appeal related to a complaint that Chris Moyles had breached BBC guidelines on taste and decency by using offensive language and by subjecting his producer to public humiliation.<br><br>The Head of Programme Complaints did not uphold this complaint. The complainant appealed to the Programme Complaints Committee.<br><br>In addition to his specific complaints, he asked the Committee to consider his view that Chris Moyles "bends and breaks the guidelines because he knows he can get away with it".<br><br>The Committee's decision:<br>The Committee noted that these programmes achieved high listening among their 15-24 year-old target audience, and that the language used by Chris Moyles was, in line with the BBC Producers' Guidelines, relevant to the expectations and taste of this group.<br><br>With regard to the banter between Chris Moyles and his production team, the programme had become a radio show, with "characters" which had developed among the production team alongside the on-air persona cultivated by Chris Moyles himself. Regular listeners knew that they were not real and the Committee was satisfied that members of the team took his invective in good part.<br><br>The Committee investigated with Radio 1 management the complainant's view that Chris Moyles was allowed to break the BBC's guidelines with impunity. Despite the difficulty of managing his raw creative talent without sacrificing his ability to connect with the audience in an authentic way, they were satisfied that proper steps were being taken, in line with the Producers' Guidelines, to anticipate potential problems and minimise the risk of causing offence. These included - at Chris Moyles' own request - tailor-made training sessions on the Producers' Guidelines at which it was made plain to him what he could and could not say on air. An audit conducted by Radio 1 management indicated that most complaints about him were because listeners did not like his persona, not because they were offended by what he said.<br><br>The appeal was not upheld.