BBC Radio 6 chief quits over new breaches

The head of programmes for BBC Radio 6 Music, Ric Blaxill, has resigned today after the corporation admitted that producers had fixed four more audience votes and competitions.

Mr Blaxill, a former Top of the Pops executive producer and creative director of Capital Radio, is the most senior casualty at the BBC so far over the growing scandal.

He has been one of the most distinctive and influential figures on the music and broadcasting scene for 20 years and has been on leave for two weeks while the BBC investigates his conduct.

The BBC said in a statement that members of a production team invented fictitious winners on the Clare McDonnell show and the Tom Robinson programme, both on 6 Music, a digital radio station.

In a third previously disclosed case, on Liz Kershaw’s programme on the station, an audience phone-in that was supposedly live was in fact pre-recorded and was conducted by the production staff.

On Tuesday, Leona McCambridge, a producer on the programme was dismissed by the BBC for gross misconduct, for allowing the phone-in to run.

In a further breach, an audience vote for awards winners on the Bollywood programme Film Cafe, on the BBC Asian Network, another digital station, also featured two winners selected not by the audience but by the production staff.

The disclosures today prompted a warning from the BBC Trust that bosses had “failed to apply satisfactory editorial controls” in children’s, entertainment and other “non-news” programmes.

The BBC also confirmed The Times’s report today that producers had overruled an audience vote on the naming of the current Blue Peter cat, Socks.

Socks was the name chosen for the Blue Peter cat, after viewers had chosen an alternative. Yesterday, it was understood from BBC staff that the name originally chosen was a variant of Puss and deemed inappropriate, but the Corporation said yesterday the name picked by viewers was Cookie.

The total number of editorial breaches by the BBC now stands at ten, and follows on from higher profile scandals involving faked winners of phone-in competitions on both Comic Relief and Children in Need, as well as on lesser known programmes.

A fast-tracked Radio 1 producer, Mr Blaxill was chosen to revamp Top of the Pops aged just 31 in 1994. He made performers sing live and staged the Britpop battle between Blur and Oasis.

After a brief period as a talent scout for Independiente Records, home of Travis, Mr Blaxill helped create SM:TV Live and CD:UK, the influential ITV children’s music shows which relaunched Ant and Dec.

He then worked in the high-pressure commercial radio environment of Capital FM, becoming Group Creative Director. The BBC poached him back to become Head of Programmes at 6 Music, the fledgling digital rock station.

Although initially attracting a limited audience, Mr Blaxill attracted star names including Russell Brand and Stephen Merchant to the station.

However the trawl of BBC competitions discovered a culture in which it had become acceptable, on some shows, to stage fake contests or invent winners.

Mr Blaxill took responsibility, tendering his resignation to Lesley Douglas, Controller of Radio 2 and 6 Music. Regularly spotted checking out the latest “indie” bands, Mr Blaxill can be expected to make a return in the commercial sector.