I worked at Channel 4 during the Russell Brand era. Ask me anything

[Channel4er]

I've thought long and hard about whether do do this AMA because people will probably be after salacious titbits which I neither have nor am interested in however there's been a lot of talk about Channel 4's role in the Brand affair and I thought I might be able to shed some light on what the culture at Channel 4 was actually like around that time.

In order to remain anonymous there may be some questions I can't answer. I've name changed but am a long standing MNer.

I totally agree with this. It was considered ok because it didn't break the law. That didn't make it ok.

1st questions nailed it.

Do you?

"That said the sad truth is no one would have batted an eye to hear that a star was sleeping with as many women as they could."

No. But that's not what these allegations are. They are something quite different altogether.

I was a press officer at C4 during the Brand era, Of course, he was known to be an eccentric and an despicable womanizer. Many so-called celebs are. The problem is that none of the women mentioned in 'Dispatches' went to the Police, so we don't really know, and maybe never will, if he did anything which could be classified as illegal.

Sorry what’s the point of this AMA, you’re not saying anything interesting. You might aswell be anyone speculating on the situation.

I didn't work in Commissioning but I was in a department that worked closely with talent and commissioning editors.

It would be wrong for me to name Commissioning Editors but it's extremely easy to look up who was running E4 at the time and who was commissioning entertainment programmes

Guilty of rape. I have no evidence either way but I believe the women who came forward.

Guilty of predatory behaviour - almost certainly

I don't work in TV any more however I can't believe there hasn't been a #MeToo moment in the music industry. Celebrity culture be that footballers or popstars has seen women being taken advantage of for decades.

Do you think the popularity of reality shows at the time had anything to do with the culture? They were looking for more and more sensational stuff.

In the Times it said Brand got runners to pick women out of the audience and bring them back stage. Did you see this kind of behaviour either there or on other shows?

If the problem wasn't with C4, was it with Endemol?

The endemol execs knew

However the exec I know was also a predator so I guess it was never going to be reported

Were you in Business Affairs or Progamme Finance?

Do you think you - and I mean this as a part of the team at C4 - were part of the problem?

Russell Brand was made famous because of the type of programming on channel 4 at the time. I was a teenager/young adult when he was a rising star and I remember watching a lot of the programmes he was on, and stuff like big brother. Looking back to me it seems like rape culture, misogyny and exploitation of vulnerable people was absolutely pushed by programmes like BB. Some of the clips shown last night made for extremely uncomfortable viewing. I felt kind of sad for my teenage self to grow up thinking that was acceptable and celebrated.

For AMA you’ve told us nothing OP.

The OP didn’t work in commissioning so she can’t be held accountable for that.

It’s extraordinary how sexist these shows are when you look back - a hangover from the 90s I guess.

The Endemol senior team would have been far closer to what happened than C4. Perhaps the C4 comm Eds did know enough that they should have stepped in, and perhaps they didn’t.

I do think however that at the time (and still now) there was a weird disconnect with someone like Brand acting his character for entertainment purposes, and the grubby and abusive realty. We somehow want to believe with such people that only the fun bits are real, the nasty stuff is not.

But he told us who he was.

I agree with the above, drop some stories. Spill some tea.

She isn’t really claiming to be anyone, just that she worked in the talent dept at C4.

Can you explain or define talent? Rte in Ireland has been in turmoil over the summer due to payments to the talent. One particular member of the talent
If a person is talent do they become bigger than the organisation?

As could anyone who does any AMA, or indeed anyone who claims anything on this whole forum. Walk away if it’s bothering you.

I just learned something- I thought Channel 4 might have studios, not that everything was outside commissioned, so it's been useful to me and makes me understand more where the fault for turning blind eyes might lie.

Who else is/ has behaved this badly, but is currently getting away with it?

Not directly relevant to Russell Brand but I worked for the BBC in a technical role when I graduated university and the sexual harassment was overwhelming I was given a lift part of the way home by a married senior colleague (he was about 50) in my first week, he pulled into a lay by and expected a BJ, I refused and got upset he then drove in stony silence to the train station and when I got into work the next day I got dragged into production and almost sacked, he's been in early to complain about me and my work ethic/attitude.

The head of my department (an unmarried man in his late 50s) on the programme I worked on pestered me daily to spend time with him outside of work, he kept trying to give me drugs, on a works night out he tried to pick me up and carry me back to his hotel room and when I started screaming he said it was just a joke. Other people saw this and said / did nothing. He also said he would help with my career if I came to London, that I could stay at his house and that doors would open for "fun girls".

When I spoke to the female executive producer I was told that I was easily replaceable but he was not and that I had to have a thick skin to do this job. Very much an attitude of I had to put up with it so you should too. One nice woman, a script editor in her 50's told me that if there was anything I wanted to do instead of film and TV work that I should do that instead.

It wasn't just those two men several men on the crew bullied or sexually harassed me and turned nasty when I didn't do what they wanted and even the nice men, they saw it and did nothing.

At that time one of my parents was very ill and the stress of the harassment and the illness in my family was too much , one day I woke up and knew I just didn't want to do it anymore not if it meant putting up with that kind of abuse for the next 10 years or more. A friend of mine was working on a movie at the same time and was also experiencing bullying and sexual harassment and the more people I spoke the more I learned it was just like that and that often the attitude was that the weak would be weeded out.

So I did walk away and I felt for year like a failure for not being able to take it and my friend who had been working on the film felt the same like a couple of losers but now I am just angry that we had to put up with that treatment as a matter of course, its disgusting and unacceptable. I really hope this being in the news means lots of people come forward to talk about how awful these industries are for women and how places like the BBC and C4 etc close ranks to protect abusive men.

Channel 4 make nothing themselves but commission others to do so instead. Even Channel 4 news is produced elsewhere, by ITN. Channel 4 are a publisher broadcaster. They commission programmes from 300 (or so) independent production companies across the UK.

This was one of the great misunderstandings/oversights of the government's plan to sell off Channel 4. They also didn't understand that Channel 4 keep the independent productions companies in work, and without Channel 4 to commission them, pretty much the entire independent production industry (in the UK) will collapse.

Thanks for your post. Informative although depressing. When did you graduate?