Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 20, 2007 22:42:35 GMT
Ross quits BBC's Crimewatch in row over ageism
By NEIL SEARS
Nick Ross has resigned from Crimewatch after 23 years in a bitter row over ageism at the BBC.
The 59-year-old yesterday fired off a lengthy criticism of the Corporation's 'patronising' obsession with younger presenters.
He warned that a procession of broadcasters 'in their 50s and 60s' could soon be following him out.
Ross's shock resignation comes only three months after veteran newsreader Moira Stuart was stopped from presenting bulletins amid claims of ageism.
The Daily Mail has learned that the anchor man, a fixture of Crimewatch since it began in 1984, had also been in a growing dispute with bosses over 'dumbing down' and the glamorisation of crime.
Ross, whose 'don't have nightmares' catchphrase made him a household name,
said last night that he had been startled to hear rumours of a 'major review' of the programme three weeks ago. At a subsequent meeting, BBC1 controller Peter Fincham raised the issue of the audience's 'ageing profile'.
Ross, whose co-presenter Jill Dando was murdered in 1999, said: "The fact I hadn't even been part of the decision to have this review meant I was clearly on the outside of the programme I'd always been on the inside of.
"I didn't want to be an appendage to Crimewatch.
"As soon as it was clear I might be a problem rather than part of the solution, I didn't want to stay.
"I don't know if age was a factor. If it was, it's daft."
He went on: "I'm not critical of fundamental reviews but are they right in principle to say 'We want to get some younger people in'? It really depends.
"It's patronising in the extreme to say young people only watch programmes presented by young people.
"I really don't think an 18-year-old looks at the programme and says 'Bloody hell, that presenter's in his late 50s'. They think 'They're good' or 'They're not'.
"My guess would be that if all this dies down then we will see more people at the BBC in their 50s and 60s going as well."
On the sidelining of Moira Stuart, Ross said: "I thought that was sad. If research shows you're no longer doing the job for the audience they're damn right to make changes.
"But in my case I honestly don't think they've got that far."
Ross, 60 in August, added: "It is true terrestrial television has not been attracting - hateful term - 'tweenies', people in their teens and twenties, but Crimewatch has been doing relatively well.
"I'm amazed that when I asked if they have any research showing I'm dragging the programme down, they said 'No'.
"I shall watch with interest to see how they will do better over the next two decades than we have in the past."
Ross, who declined BBC offers of alternative work, said he was approached by two rival broadcasters within hours of his resignation leaking yesterday.
He will present Crimewatch for the final time on July 2.
Ross added: "On the upside of this, there might now come a time when people who see me shopping stop saying 'Don't have nightmares'. It happens about five or six times a day."
The Mail revealed last month that viewers had been complaining that Crimewatch reconstructions were increasingly sensationalist.
"Yesterday, a senior source at the programme, which attracts upm to five million viewers, said tension had been rising since staff from consumer affairs show Watchdog were brought in.
"Ever since Crimewatch started there was very much a family feel to the team," he said.
"But over the last year or two a group of people who have mostly come from Watchdog have brought tensions. Nick's been given the sense he's too conservative.
"He didn't like it when they started putting heavy drum music over murder reconstructions, and started talking about how many crimes people had got away with.
"Nick thought it suggested to young people, 'You might as well go out robbing, it's so easy to get away with'."
Sue Cook, who presented Crimewatch with Ross for the first 11 years, said she was stunned to hear of his resignation.
She added: "Speaking as a presenter, if they want to give Crimewatch a new look that would worry me.
"They need to keep it on the right side of violence and not ignite copycat crime while keeping the programme's integrity.
"There's been criticism of it being too violent and that would worry me. I would be surprised if Nick wasn't worried about that."
A spokesman for the BBC last night denied Ross had been forced out to make way for a younger presenter.
She said his contract was due to expire next month and he had been asked to carry on until Christmas but declined.
The spokesman added: "We haven't said we're getting younger people in - that's jumping to conclusions."
When Nick Ross signed off the first edition of Crimewatch in 1984 with the line, "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well," he never expected that his ad lib would become a national catchphrase - or that the programme would still be going 23 years later, with him still at the helm.
Although he was already a successful broadcaster when the series began, presenting a whole range of current affairs programmes, Crimewatch was the show that made him a household name.
It was not only hugely popular with audiences but with the police as well, who saw it as an invaluable resource for helping solve their most difficult cases.
Over the years it has helped close the book on about one in six of the cases it has presented - among them the Lin and Megan Russell murders and the James Bulger killing.
Its most dramatic success came in the kidnap of Birmingham estate agent Stephanie Slater.
Within moments of the reconstruction on Crimewatch the ex-wife of kidnapper Michael Sams recognised him and rang up police to identify him. He was jailed for life - not just for the kidnap but also for the murder of Leeds teenager Julie Dart.
Crime intruded on the programme itself when Ross's co-presenter Jill Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham in April 1999. It took a year before loner Barry George was arrested.
He was convicted of her murder at the Old Bailey in July 2001. George appealed unsuccessfully, but has since launched a second application which is being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
After Dando's death Ross proposed launching an academic institute in her name, and together with her fiance Alan Farthing raised £1.5 million. The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science was founded in 2001 - on the second anniversary of her death - at University College, London.
Despite his association with crime prevention, Ross has presented a wide range of programmes both before and since Crimewatch.
After joining the BBC he started reporting from Northern Ireland in 1971 before moving to London as a reporter for the Today and World at One programmes on Radio 4.
From there his career took off, and in 1984 he was chosen to launch the BBC's Breakfast Time with co-hosts Frank Bough and Selina Scott.
Then, in the early Eighties, an idea started floating around the broadcasting industry for a crime-fighting programme in which viewers could participate.
Many thought it would not work, and many senior police officers were sceptical. When the pilot programme aired, only three chief constables would let their officers take part.
But despite such tentative beginnings, the programme was a huge success, and by its third edition it had helped solve its first murder.
Although the police often brought the programme their most intractable cases Crimewatch - co-presented in the early days by Sue Cook - still managed to achieve results.
It helped trace paedophile labourer Glyn Kenyon, who subjected two schoolgirls to years of horrific abuse, and identified M25 serial rapist Antoni Imiela, who raped seven women and girls as young as 10.
On the first anniversary of the Russell murders an E-fit of the killer was shown on Crimewatch. It was seen by Stone's psychiatrist, Dr Philip Sugarman, who telephoned the police. Stone's arrest followed on 17 July 1997, a week after the Crimewatch screening.
After Dando's killing Ross presented the programme by himself for eight months before being joined by Fiona Bruce.
By NEIL SEARS
Nick Ross has resigned from Crimewatch after 23 years in a bitter row over ageism at the BBC.
The 59-year-old yesterday fired off a lengthy criticism of the Corporation's 'patronising' obsession with younger presenters.
He warned that a procession of broadcasters 'in their 50s and 60s' could soon be following him out.
Ross's shock resignation comes only three months after veteran newsreader Moira Stuart was stopped from presenting bulletins amid claims of ageism.
The Daily Mail has learned that the anchor man, a fixture of Crimewatch since it began in 1984, had also been in a growing dispute with bosses over 'dumbing down' and the glamorisation of crime.
Ross, whose 'don't have nightmares' catchphrase made him a household name,
said last night that he had been startled to hear rumours of a 'major review' of the programme three weeks ago. At a subsequent meeting, BBC1 controller Peter Fincham raised the issue of the audience's 'ageing profile'.
Ross, whose co-presenter Jill Dando was murdered in 1999, said: "The fact I hadn't even been part of the decision to have this review meant I was clearly on the outside of the programme I'd always been on the inside of.
"I didn't want to be an appendage to Crimewatch.
"As soon as it was clear I might be a problem rather than part of the solution, I didn't want to stay.
"I don't know if age was a factor. If it was, it's daft."
He went on: "I'm not critical of fundamental reviews but are they right in principle to say 'We want to get some younger people in'? It really depends.
"It's patronising in the extreme to say young people only watch programmes presented by young people.
"I really don't think an 18-year-old looks at the programme and says 'Bloody hell, that presenter's in his late 50s'. They think 'They're good' or 'They're not'.
"My guess would be that if all this dies down then we will see more people at the BBC in their 50s and 60s going as well."
On the sidelining of Moira Stuart, Ross said: "I thought that was sad. If research shows you're no longer doing the job for the audience they're damn right to make changes.
"But in my case I honestly don't think they've got that far."
Ross, 60 in August, added: "It is true terrestrial television has not been attracting - hateful term - 'tweenies', people in their teens and twenties, but Crimewatch has been doing relatively well.
"I'm amazed that when I asked if they have any research showing I'm dragging the programme down, they said 'No'.
"I shall watch with interest to see how they will do better over the next two decades than we have in the past."
Ross, who declined BBC offers of alternative work, said he was approached by two rival broadcasters within hours of his resignation leaking yesterday.
He will present Crimewatch for the final time on July 2.
Ross added: "On the upside of this, there might now come a time when people who see me shopping stop saying 'Don't have nightmares'. It happens about five or six times a day."
The Mail revealed last month that viewers had been complaining that Crimewatch reconstructions were increasingly sensationalist.
"Yesterday, a senior source at the programme, which attracts upm to five million viewers, said tension had been rising since staff from consumer affairs show Watchdog were brought in.
"Ever since Crimewatch started there was very much a family feel to the team," he said.
"But over the last year or two a group of people who have mostly come from Watchdog have brought tensions. Nick's been given the sense he's too conservative.
"He didn't like it when they started putting heavy drum music over murder reconstructions, and started talking about how many crimes people had got away with.
"Nick thought it suggested to young people, 'You might as well go out robbing, it's so easy to get away with'."
Sue Cook, who presented Crimewatch with Ross for the first 11 years, said she was stunned to hear of his resignation.
She added: "Speaking as a presenter, if they want to give Crimewatch a new look that would worry me.
"They need to keep it on the right side of violence and not ignite copycat crime while keeping the programme's integrity.
"There's been criticism of it being too violent and that would worry me. I would be surprised if Nick wasn't worried about that."
A spokesman for the BBC last night denied Ross had been forced out to make way for a younger presenter.
She said his contract was due to expire next month and he had been asked to carry on until Christmas but declined.
The spokesman added: "We haven't said we're getting younger people in - that's jumping to conclusions."
When Nick Ross signed off the first edition of Crimewatch in 1984 with the line, "Don't have nightmares, do sleep well," he never expected that his ad lib would become a national catchphrase - or that the programme would still be going 23 years later, with him still at the helm.
Although he was already a successful broadcaster when the series began, presenting a whole range of current affairs programmes, Crimewatch was the show that made him a household name.
It was not only hugely popular with audiences but with the police as well, who saw it as an invaluable resource for helping solve their most difficult cases.
Over the years it has helped close the book on about one in six of the cases it has presented - among them the Lin and Megan Russell murders and the James Bulger killing.
Its most dramatic success came in the kidnap of Birmingham estate agent Stephanie Slater.
Within moments of the reconstruction on Crimewatch the ex-wife of kidnapper Michael Sams recognised him and rang up police to identify him. He was jailed for life - not just for the kidnap but also for the murder of Leeds teenager Julie Dart.
Crime intruded on the programme itself when Ross's co-presenter Jill Dando was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham in April 1999. It took a year before loner Barry George was arrested.
He was convicted of her murder at the Old Bailey in July 2001. George appealed unsuccessfully, but has since launched a second application which is being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
After Dando's death Ross proposed launching an academic institute in her name, and together with her fiance Alan Farthing raised £1.5 million. The Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science was founded in 2001 - on the second anniversary of her death - at University College, London.
Despite his association with crime prevention, Ross has presented a wide range of programmes both before and since Crimewatch.
After joining the BBC he started reporting from Northern Ireland in 1971 before moving to London as a reporter for the Today and World at One programmes on Radio 4.
From there his career took off, and in 1984 he was chosen to launch the BBC's Breakfast Time with co-hosts Frank Bough and Selina Scott.
Then, in the early Eighties, an idea started floating around the broadcasting industry for a crime-fighting programme in which viewers could participate.
Many thought it would not work, and many senior police officers were sceptical. When the pilot programme aired, only three chief constables would let their officers take part.
But despite such tentative beginnings, the programme was a huge success, and by its third edition it had helped solve its first murder.
Although the police often brought the programme their most intractable cases Crimewatch - co-presented in the early days by Sue Cook - still managed to achieve results.
It helped trace paedophile labourer Glyn Kenyon, who subjected two schoolgirls to years of horrific abuse, and identified M25 serial rapist Antoni Imiela, who raped seven women and girls as young as 10.
On the first anniversary of the Russell murders an E-fit of the killer was shown on Crimewatch. It was seen by Stone's psychiatrist, Dr Philip Sugarman, who telephoned the police. Stone's arrest followed on 17 July 1997, a week after the Crimewatch screening.
After Dando's killing Ross presented the programme by himself for eight months before being joined by Fiona Bruce.
