BBC bosses face grilling on content

7:57am Tuesday 18th November 2008

The BBC's chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, and its Director-General, Mark Thompson, will be questioned by MPs about the corporation's editorial control over offensive content.

The BBC has been under intense scrutiny in recent weeks, after Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand caused an uproar by leaving lewd messages on actor Andrew Sachs' answer phone about his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, sparking more than 40,000 complaints.

Several apologies have been made over the comments, broadcast on Brand's BBC Radio 2 show on October 18.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee is holding its second oral evidence session on its ongoing inquiry into the commercial operations of the BBC.

It will also question the BBC at the session about its editorial control over offensive content.

The terms of reference for the inquiry were published in July.

They include the benefits and opportunities offered by the BBC undertaking a range of commercial activities in the UK and abroad and the potential risks.

They also include the future of BBC Worldwide and other BBC commercial subsidiaries and how the money returned to the BBC by its commercial operations is invested.

Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said the calls to Sachs were a "serious lapse of broadcasting standards" and the BBC management was "too slow" in recognising the seriousness of the situation.

Radio 2 boss Lesley Douglas also quit on October 30 and that was followed by the resignation of David Barber, the Radio 2 head of specialist music and compliance.