Exactly who it’s likely to benefit is a matter of some puzzlement, but it’s been announced today that the BBC have been fined £150,000 over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand calling Andrew Sachs a “Fawlty Towers Second Sitting (Now Reissued On The ‘Vintage Beeb’ Label) Stupidhead”, which if nothing else should please those RA RA LICENSE FEE idiots. But more than probably won’t.
To celebrate this momentous occasion with obvious long-term benefits for all of us, thanks to the time-bending shenanigans of one Peter Petrelli, here’s a full list of all of those record fines that broadcasters have had to fork out over the years when transgressing the boundaries of what is considered acceptable by people who didn’t see/hear it but were utterly shocked when they heard about it from someone or other:
1978: Peter Howell made to return royalties when Through A Glass Darkly is officially judged to have breached Trading Standards guidelines over how much actual music an album should contain
1984: BBC made to ‘wear FR David t-shirt’ for three days as punishment for when a soldier swore in Threads
1985: Spitting Image fined £800 for sketch featuring Roland Rat Being Hit With A Cricket Bat
1985: TV-am fined £8000 for repeating clip of Roland Rat Being Hit With A Cricket Bat
1986: BBC given sack of ashes for showing Jagged Edge on Christmas Eve
1987: Central TV fined One Can Of Citrus Spring (payable to P. Cool) for broadcasting offensive sitcom Hardwicke House
1989: BBC forced to pay damages to British Rail for ‘malicious jokes about delays and sandwiches’ in The Mary Whitehouse Experience
1992: Everyone involved with Ghostwatch has two months’ pay docked for ‘being rubbish’
1997: Alan Driscoll, lead singer of techno band thewomb charged with ‘wasting everyone’s time’ for invading the stage on CD:UK
2001: Channel 4 fined £800,000,000,000 over the Brass Eye Special, but ordered not to pay it because “Chris Morris is allowed to do what he likes, especially if it has no fucking jokes in”
2003: Ricky Hervaid given special knighthood for Services For Making It Acceptable To Be Racist And Homophobic Again And Somehow Getting Away With It
2004: Everyone pays for Hutton Report except for those who actually should
2005: Some Tosser kicked into space for whingeing about DVD extras
2007: Entire cast and crew of Torchwood punched
2008: Sendhil Ramamurthy TV’s Mohinder From Heroes fined £0.20 in the hope it might make him react to something; it doesn’t
2009: The Grimleys fined seven shillings for ‘being on’
