Alex Mahon, head of British public broadcaster Channel 4, described the allegations against comedian Russell Brand as “horrific” and confirmed that the broadcaster was investigating the comedian’s behavior.
Brand has been accused of sexual assault and rape by four women. The allegations were revealed last weekend in a joint investigation by the Times of London, the Sunday Times and Channel 4 documentary team Dispatches.
The comedian was a familiar face on Channel 4 for many years, including presenting the Big Brother spin-off Big Brother’s Big Mouth. In 2019, he also appeared as a celebrity guest on The Great British Bake-Off, where he shocked viewers by baking cookies shaped like his wife’s genitals.
“We meet in a week when our industry is once again in the public spotlight,” Mahon said as she gave the opening speech at the Royal Television Society conference in Cambridge on Wednesday morning, sponsored by Channel 4 and which Mahon chairs holds. “And while I’m about to get into the topic of the conference, I’m going to talk about the headlines first.”
“The allegations made against Russell Brand are terrible and as the CEO of Channel 4 – and as a woman in our industry – I found the behavior described in Dispatches and the articles in the Sunday Times and The Times abhorrent and sad.” The allegations must, of course, be addressed will be investigated further and we, the BBC and Banijay are investigating.”
“And Channel 4 has invited anyone who knows of this behavior to come to us and we have written to all our suppliers to say the same and we have a process in place for people to contact us anonymously if they need to. They are not empty words or gestures from any of us, but part of what we understand as our duty of care. We will try to find out who knew, who was told what and what was or was not brought up.”
“However, it is clear to me that terrible behavior towards women has always been tolerated in our industry. And clips we’ve seen also provide quite a shock considering what was on air not long ago,” she also said of the many videos that have surfaced of Brand’s behavior and comments on television, that emerged as a result of the allegations.
In the Dispatches documentary, many of those who worked with Brand during his time at Channel 4 and other broadcasters spoke of behavior that made them uncomfortable, including picking on young viewers. Clips from his stand-up and hosting appearances were also shown in which he made inappropriate comments and seemingly unwanted physical advances toward guests.
Mahon’s speech on Wednesday also addressed the conference’s theme: “Is there too much to see?” He said that public broadcasters were on a “generational time bomb” given the wealth of content available to viewers ” sit.
“We urgently need to recognize that those of us who are British public broadcasters are sitting on a generational time bomb,” Mahon told the audience, which included BBC boss Tim Davie, who will speak later on Wednesday.
Mahon spoke about the changing way viewers consume content and highlighted the importance of public broadcasters. They would “awaken people’s sense of connection to their own local, regional or national concerns.”
However, she pointed out that young people are no longer as connected to traditional British public broadcasters, instead switching to streamers and short-form social media.
“The young audience brands have different services and navigate differently,” Mahon said. “We don’t know what this will mean yet, but it’s safe to say that there has been a much more profound change for her than her parents experienced.”