ROSS ‘HAS MADE BBC CAUTIOUS’

He claimed the BBC now avoided controversial ideas “like the plague” in the wake of the “Sachsgate” scandal when Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand made prank phone calls to actor Andrew Sachs.

Mr Bellamy described his own network as TV’s “sole guardian of non- conformism” and urged it not to bow to pressures created by public scruples.

He told a gathering of the Royal Television Society that Channel 4’s decision to axe Big Brother post 2010 represented a “unique opportunity for us to reconnect with our key cultural role”.