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Old October 19th, 2011 #8
Bev
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Default BBC apologises to nonce Jonathan King for cutting him out of TOTP

Quote:
Sex offender Jonathan King has forced the BBC into a humiliating apology after he was cut out of a repeat of Top Of The Pops.

The corporation has been screening 1976 editions of the show on BBC Four. King appeared in April of that year with his hit It Only Takes A Minute, which reached No 9 in the charts.

However, his appearance was cut from the re-run for fear of offending viewers – a decision which King described as a ‘Stalinist revision of history’.
Jonathan King performing his hit It Only Takes a Minute on Top of the Pops in 1976

Jonathan King performing his hit It Only Takes a Minute on Top of the Pops in 1976. Cambridge graduate King started his career as a record company executive, discovering multi-million selling acts Genesis and 10cc, before becoming a pop singer

Now 66, King was convicted in 2001 of sexual assault on five teenage boys in the 1980s. He was given a seven-year jail sentence and was released on parole in 2005.

He complained to the BBC’s director general Mark Thompson about being left out of the programme in April this year.



In his response, which King has posted on his website, Mr Thompson apologised and wrote that the omission should ‘not have happened’.

Mr Thompson wrote: ‘The BBC’s complaints process begins with a response from the relevant programme makers and I therefore asked my colleagues in BBC Four to address this matter.


‘Their response is as follows: “We are sorry that Mr King’s appearance was edited out of this particular programme. We accept that this should not have happened and we would like to apologise for any upset this caused”.

‘I want to join BBC Four in apologising for this incorrect decision.’
King has also been assured that no more of his Top Of The Pops appearances will be edited out.

Mr Thompson’s response continued: ‘We can assure Mr King that there is no policy in place requiring any of his appearances, or those of any one else, to be removed from repeats we show on the channel.

‘We can also assure Mr King that his performance will not be edited out of any future repeat of this particular episode of Top of the Pops.’
MARK THOMPSON'S LETTER OF APOLOGY TO JONATHAN KING

Dear Jonathan
Thank you for your email. Please accept my apologies for the delay in replying.

I am sorry to hear that you were unhappy that your performance was edited out of an episode of Top of the Pops recently repeated on BBC Four.

The BBC's complaints process begins with a response from the relevant programme makers and I therefore asked my colleagues in BBC Four to address this matter.

Their response is as follows:
"We are sorry that Mr King's appearance was edited out of this particular programme. We accept that this should not have happened and we would like to apologise for any upset this caused.

"We can assure Mr King that there is no policy in place requiring any of his appearances, or those of any one else, to be removed from repeats we show on the channel.

"We can also assure Mr King that his performance will not be edited out of any future repeat of this particular episode of Top of the Pops."

I hope this response is helpful, but please come back to me if there are any further points you wish to raise and I will ensure that these are dealt with in accordance with our complaints process.

I want to join BBC Four in apologising for this incorrect decision.

Best wishes
Mark Thompson Director General BBC

King was delighted with his victory over the BBC. He said: ‘I wrote to Mark Thompson asking why the BBC have adopted the Stalinist revision approach to history, and this is a very nice response.

‘The principle of not altering history is a far bigger one than It Only Takes a Minute – would they remove Hitler from retrospectives?’

He claimed Seventies star Gary Glitter, 67, who was convicted of possessing child pornography in the UK before being convicted in Vietnam for committing obscene acts with minors, had also been removed from repeats.

He went on: ‘I hope this means that any other showings of any other episodes will also feature my performances – the Seventies were full of them, and in the Eighties shows, I’m on virtually once a month doing American chart rundowns.

‘And I hope other censorship, such as removing Glitter from earlier shows, will now be corrected.’

Cambridge graduate King started his career as a record company executive, discovering multi-million selling acts Genesis and 10cc, before becoming a pop singer.

As well as continuing to perform and produce pop records, he presented popular programmes including Entertainment USA.

He was shamed in September 2001 when he received a seven-year sentence for six offences against five boys aged 14 to 16, committed between 1983 and 1989.

King was arrested in November 2000 after the allegations were made public.

At the time, he was released on £150,000 bail, with £50,000 of it put up by X Factor creator Simon Cowell. He was re-arrested two months later.

The BBC had no further official comment on Mr Thompson’s apology to King

A corporation source, however, said: ‘The BBC doesn’t think it should be rewriting history so will be showing these programmes in their entirety.’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050698/BBC-apologise-paedophile-Jonathan-King-deleting-Top-Pops.html

So the BBC are promoting paedophiles then. Presumably he will have received royalties every time the programme is shown - disgusting.
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