First Moira, now 'ageist' BBC axes Crimewatch Nick

THE BBC was at the centre of a new ageism row yesterday after ousted Crimewatch host Nick Ross said he felt sidelined by younger staff.

Nick Ross Nick Ross

Ross, 59, said he was forced into quitting his job of 23 years after his input was increasingly ignored by top production staff.

The BBC was recently accused of ageism when Moira Stuart, 55, was dropped from reading the news.

Ross, a former Radio 4 host, said an independent team of TV advisers was consulted, instead of him, about how to refresh Crimewatch.

“TV is very much a young person’s medium,” he said last night. “They brought in outside producers and asked them, ‘What do you think we should do to the show to keep it fresh?’ Until then I had always been at the heart of the editorial process behind Crimewatch.”

Ross, who signed off the first edition of Crimewatch in 1984, and all subsequent shows, by saying “Don’t have nightmares, do sleep well”, said it had become clear that he was seen as the main problem.

“I think these new producers said something like, ‘You’re not going to make it look very different if Nick is still fronting it’.”

Ross said he first wondered whether his 59 years was an issue when BBC1 controller Peter Fincham questioned the ageing profile of the show’s audience at a breakfast meeting before he knew his contract was not being renewed.

Ross said: “It is well known that the controller of BBC1 has got a problem, as have ITV, with the changing nature of audiences to terrestrial TV.”

But Ross said he was not bitter, though his next Crimewatch appearance on July 2 will be his last.

He said: “I have no criticism of the idea that you have to modernise. But if it was left to me, I don’t perceive myself to be a problem.”

He added: “The fact that I hadn’t even been told they were thinking of having a review of the programme tells me that the writing was on the wall. I’m not a lollipop. I don’t just read from the autocue.”

He said he had already received two TV offers since news of his departure broke.

Sue Cook, who presented the  show with Ross for 11 years, said: “I was shocked because Nick has shown staunch loyalty by sticking with Crimewatch for so long.”

Crimewatch will forever be associated with Jill Dando who took over from Sue in 1995 and was shot dead on her doorstep in Fulham in 1999.

Loner Barry George, convicted of her murder in 2001, has won the right to a new court appeal.

A BBC insider admitted: “There is a feeling we are losing younger viewers to satellite stations, independent channels and the internet and we are desperate to keep up.”

A BBC spokeswoman said: “Nick’s contract was coming to an end, so we thought it was an opportunity to make changes.

“Age has not come into this at all. In fact, we asked him to stay on until Christmas but he preferred to leave before the summer break.”

Co-presenter Fiona Bruce, 43, is staying on. It has not yet been decided if she will host the show with a new partner.

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