Radio 4 presenter Nigel Rees has revealed he stop the BBC after 46 years as a result of he felt pressured by the company’s concentrate on range.
The 77-year-old, who had introduced the Quote… Unquote panel recreation since January 1976, left the present final month.
He mentioned he felt put below strain by the BBC’s ‘precedence’ to ask numerous friends – even when they weren’t at all times probably the most appropriate audio system.
‘We had prescriptions to have numerous teams and disabled friends,’ he mentioned.
‘I went together with it as a result of I needed to. It got here from upstairs and it gave the impression to be a common precedence.’
He added that he felt it was ‘patronising’, not least to the individuals who may need felt they had been solely on the present as they had been ‘ticking a field’.
‘I’m not prepared to go on having my selections interfered with in an effort to tick bins within the identify of range and illustration,’ he advised The Sunday Instances.
Radio 4 presenter Nigel Rees has revealed he stop the BBC after 46 years as a result of he felt pressured by the company’s concentrate on range
Mr Rees created the present and introduced 57 collection. It sees a panel of celebrities share their favorite quotations and quizzed on origins of others.
He mentioned he recruited most friends by means of his contacts, having hosted greater than 500 together with Sir David Attenborough and Dame Judi Dench.
However from the 56th collection in 2020 he mentioned the BBC started to make ‘impositions’ as to who he ought to have on and felt his selections had been questioned over fears of offending audiences.
He cited how in a deliberate phase the place friends had been requested to establish lyrics he was ‘pressured to take away traces’ from Noel Coward’s 1932 track Mad Canine and Englishmen.
The traces had been: ‘In Bengal/ to maneuver in any respect/ is seldom if ever accomplished.’
Mr Rees mentioned: ‘I used to be advised that it “mirrored colonial attitudes” and so the woke police leant closely on me to decide on one thing else. This misses the entire level of the track, that it’s the English colonials who’re being mocked, not the natives.’
A BBC spokesman mentioned: ‘We would like our output to be consultant of the UK and we would like contributors on our comedy reveals to be splendidly partaking and humorous. These two ambitions aren’t mutually unique and it could be extremely condescending to counsel in any other case.’
Mr Rees mentioned he felt put below strain by the BBC’s ‘precedence’ to ask numerous friends – even when they weren’t at all times probably the most appropriate audio system. Pictured, Broadcasting Home, in London