BBC’s Jeremy Clarkson woes highlight difficulty of putting the brakes on talent

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/15/bbc-jeremy-clarkson-top-gear-tv-talent

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According to BBC director general Tony Hall, wherever he goes in the world people want to “talk about the next series of Top Gear”. Last week another series of the hit BBC2 show looked a more remote possibility following the suspension of presenter Jeremy Clarkson and the postponing of the last three episodes.

Hall has also admitted that “we are in a race for talent” with rivals, and Clarkson’s alleged fracas with producer Oisin Tymon showed the difficulties that can cause when managing talent. How do you deal with a star who is seen as such an integral part of a show’s popularity?From Angus Deayton to Richard Bacon, the BBC has had its share of presenter-led controversies to deal with. But Clarkson presents a different issue, dancing between the BBC’s editorial guidelines and regulator Ofcom’s codes and hitting the headlines with his “slope” joke and other alleged racist remarks.

The fracas gives Hall and BBC director of television Danny Cohen a different headache as it allegedly involves the physical manhandling of a colleague. The words of Dinah Rose QC – who put together the Respect at Work review for the BBC following the Jimmy Savile scandal – are probably ringing in their ears. “Certain people are powerful because they bring in the ratings,” she said. “I would like the BBC to sit down with the unions and staff, setting down what is appropriate behaviour, what is and isn’t inappropriate behaviour. If a presenter is coming in for a series, they know you don’t shout at the researcher, you don’t throw your weight around.”

Related: Noel Edmonds: BBC has shown ‘sheer incompetence’ over Jeremy Clarkson

Bectu supervisory official Helen Ryan says: “There’s a level of acceptable behaviour in the workplace and it doesn’t matter if you’re Prince Philip or whoever, if you step over the mark of unacceptable behaviour then that has to be dealt with and managed.”

One agent says Clarkson had great power on Top Gear because the BBC effectively “handed him and [executive producer] Andy Wilman a chunk of the intellectual property” when it entered into a business partnership with the pair and took a stake in their company Bedder 6. It was apparently done to reflect the changes Clarkson and Wilman had made to the programme’s format that helped turn it into a global hit, plus help keep Clarkson, who was supposedly being wooed by both ITV and American Idol creator Simon Fuller at the time.

Clarkson is undoubtedly clever, as his time on Great Britons showed, and understands the power of a controversy, which is great for ratings but can prove tricky for his paymasters at the BBC. Blink Films co-founder Dan Chambers, who while at Channel 5 in 2002 came close to signing Clarkson for Fifth Gear, says when they were discussing other programme ideas Clarkson suggested controversies they might create. “The man is a genius. It’s as if every six weeks another event happens that helps keep it [Top Gear] at 6 million viewers. It’s a cheekiness – ‘what can we do that is ridiculous and outrageous?’”

Once Clarkson told Cohen about the incident involving Tymon the BBC had little choice but to start a disciplinary investigation. It has suspended stars before, such as Jonathan Ross, but this is unusual as Clarkson is so close to the end of his contract. These days, argues presenter Jonathan Maitland, - who has worked at the BBC and has also written a play that features bullying, Margaret Thatcher Dead Sheep- the corporation has to be seen to be even-handed. “Post-Savile it’s like the Nuremberg trials. But the BBC has got to act and be seen to be acting. But it is like walking on eggshells.”

Related: Top Gear: the BBC’s biggest global money spinner

Yet former BBC Trust chairman Michael Lyons argues: “It does seem to me that in dealing with the aftermath of the Savile situation, which showed there wasn’t strong enough management action at the time, there is a sort of echo here. Obviously there is no question of abuse, but the situation demonstrates how difficult it is for management to take decisive action when dealing with the ‘nation’s favourite’, when even the prime minister weighs in.

“This is a very, very difficult situation and illustrates that those who say the BBC should have been more decisive with Savile, well when they get a difficult situation the BBC must have freedom to act and act decisively. No one is bigger than BBC and they have good experience of replacing people now. I want them to make the right decision, to have the space to do it, and be courageous.”

Another ex-BBC chairman and former agent, Michael Grade, says the “level of scrutiny and transparency” now due to social media and camera phones makes things more difficult when dealing with stars. “I could go back over years and tell you hair-raising stories of managing talent. But they are not in the public domain. That is the big difference.

“This has been going on for years. Some talent is very difficult to manage. I’ve had artists lock themselves in dressing rooms. It is par for the course … These things are much better handled behind closed doors. It is not a spectator sport managing talent. Maybe the fear of exposure will cause talent to start thinking twice before they misbehave [I’m] not talking about Jeremy Clarkson there as no one knows the details of the case.”

If Clarkson does walk away – some suggest his close links to some ITV executives and his previous talks with the network could see him end up there – could the BBC find new talent to bring to Top Gear? Northumbria University principal lecturer Dr Lee Barron, who has written a book called Celebrity Cultures, argues that some shows are “intimately linked” with their presenters, pointing to Top Gear and sitcom Two and a Half Men, which lost another controversial character – Charlie Sheen.

He says it is difficult for broadcasters, “when brands are connected closely to personalities prone to certain behaviour”, adding, “Jeremy Clarkson is Top Gear effectively”.

Clarkson is loyal to the BBC brand, which helps the corporation. But he no longer has the same commercial interest in it since the BBC bought him and Wilman out of Bedder 6, and he was prepared to walk before to Channel 5.

Chambers recalls: “He was really up for it … We got quite far advanced but then he got cold feet because his friend AA Gill said if he went to Channel 5 his career would take a nosedive. He came very, very close. If he’d not been friends with AA Gill who knows what would’ve happened?”

Whoever wants to end up employing Clarkson’s talents should clearly be talking to AA Gill.

• This article was amended on 15 March 2015 to correct the name of Two and a Half Men