Ross and Brand prank calls 'a serious lapse'

Lewd phone messages from Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were a “very serious editorial lapse”, the BBC’s director-general said today.

BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons said the corporation had “crossed a boundary” by broadcasting the messages left on actor Andrew Sachs’s answerphone on Brand’s Radio 2 show.

Facing questions by MPs in a Culture, Media and Sport Committee hearing at the UK's House of Commons, director-general Mark Thompson said: “I am very aware that this was a very serious editorial lapse.

“There were errors in judgment.”