BBC producer resigns over Springer 'blasphemy'

[emad]

Guardian
Chris Tryhorn
Wednesday January 12, 2005

A senior BBC radio producer has quit in protest after the corporation broadcast the controversial musical Jerry Springer - the Opera, saying it was blasphemous and offensive to his Christian faith.

Antony Pitts, a senior producer at BBC Radio 3, handed in his resignation after watching the BBC2 broadcast of Jerry Springer - the Opera, despite two personal interventions by director general Mark Thompson trying to persuade him to stay.

Mr Pitts revealed he had threatened to leave on Friday, before the programme had gone out, but was persuaded to reserve judgment and watch it for himself in a 40-minute phone call with Mr Thompson.

But despite Mr Thompson's pleas, repeated at a meeting this week, Mr Pitts decided after watching the award-winning musical that it was even more offensive than he had feared.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1388462,00.html

[emad]

1. BBC:

In his resignation letter, he listed what he had found blasphemous in the broadcast.

These examples included "the ridiculing of the figure of Jesus on the cross, dressed to imply sexual perversion" and "the repeated mockery of the wounds (stigmata) of Jesus, linked to acts of crudeness".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4167391.stm

[naryaquid]

3. I am certainly against

publishing the personnel information mentioned here, but the description of the show DOES sound ugly..and no, I'm not a practicing Christian.

[emad]

4. I watched some of it intermittently and thought it was boring, insipid

and not a patch on the usual rant that the live show used to put out.

[emad]

2. Christian Voice protest published BBC personnel details:

In turn, the BBC has been consulting police over possible action against Christian Voice, which published home addresses of 15 senior corporation executives and producers. Some households were deluged with hundreds of calls.

A BBC source said one of the calls mentioned "bloodshed" and another warned the recipient that "something bad could happen".

The corporation said it had been forced to adopt security measures akin to those it had used in the past after programmes dealing with the far Right.

"We are not going to put up with dedicated public servants and their families being abused," the BBC source added.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/10/nspring10.xml

[MrBenchley]

5. That's Britain for you...

Witht he GOP in charge here, everybody connected with the broadcast would have been fired if one person objected.

[warrens]

6. Buh-bye

Butthead. Reminds me of the Life of Brian insanity 20 years ago.

[Trajan]

7. Life of Brian ...

One of my favorite movies ....

But Hey: Let's stomp on George Harrison's grave ... after all: He produced Life Of Brian ....

[LeftCoast]

8. Looks like our wannabe Christian Overlords strike again

-nt-

[leesa]

9. Good. One less narrow minded person in the BBC