Oh dear ... Jay Hunt has got it wrong again. According to one paper she admits people were unhappy about replacing Arlene with Alesha, but says (words to the effect) but on the bright side "we now have a young black woman presenting on a Saturday night" ...............

As the paper said, she just doesn't get it. People actually want the right person for the job, IRRESPECTIVE of age or colour.

How ignorant is Hunt!

There is a word that rhymes with Hunt.......

I read that headline and she says presenting. Erm, Alesha is not 'presenting.'

I truly believe these execs don't watch the programmes they go on about!

I wouldn't mind if Donald Duck was given the job if he was qualified. I do think it shameful that ducks are kept off saturday night prime time.

This reeks of the cretinous and nauseatingly hypocritical hierarchy of prejudice at work i.e. it's acceptable to be perceived as ageist as long as it strengthens your 'anti-racist' credentials.

The ironic reality is, of course, that for some people it does nothing but weaken those credentials.

Lol she basically admitted that Alesha being black was one of the main reasons they hired her.

I don't see why the media still care about Arlene being replaced by Alesha.

The whole ageism argument is getting a bit ridiculous too, Bruce is still on the show, isn't he?

It's about ageism against women there's always been a double standard that the media seem happier to hire older blokes but women of a certain age tend to be ditched. I don't think giving someone a job they're aren't qualified to do because of their colour is helpful it plays into the hands of right-wingers who think that anyone coloured who gets a job does so because of tokenism and as a white person I can't speak from experience but if I wasn't white I'd think it was incredibly patronising and would rather be given the job because I was deemed the best person for it.

I read the title of this thread and my heart sank... I opened it with the thought....

"what now"....

Personally not read the article yet (where is it - on Greytops?) but if thats the impression that has been given, I think Ms Hunt needs to go to PR school.... (or sue the respective paper for misrepresentation).

Yeah, I agree with you. There are different unwritten rules for men regarding their age. I'm not really bothered about Alesha being a judge on the show though whatever the BBC's intentions were behind hiring her. Even if it was reverse discrimination, I reckon she does an alright job.

Its another astonishingly ill advised comment by a BBC boss on Alesha hiring as a judge. I still cant get past the beeb publicly announcing that they were happy with Alesha performance as a judge last year. WHy cant they shut the hell up about Alesha and see how it goe or are all these public announcements stating they truly believe they made the right decision to appoint her actually acknowledgment that they know they've screwed up?

Its another astonishingly ill advised comment by a BBC boss on Alesha hiring as a judge. I still cant get past the beeb publicly announcing that they were happy with Alesha performance as a judge last year. WHy cant they shut the hell up about Alesha and see how it goes or are all these public announcements stating they truly believe they made the right decision to appoint her actually acknowledgment that they know they've screwed up?

The woman is beyond useless, I'm not sure how she got the job of running BBC1.

Jay Hunt missed her calling in life - she should have been a mime artist imo. Every time she's opened her mouth on the subject of Alesha / Arlene she's put both feet in it.

Whether I think Alesha's a good Strictly judge or not, to come out with rubbish like 'We now have a young black woman presenting on a saturday night' seems to me to be a tad desperate and vaguely insulting to Alesha herself, in that it suggests that part of the reason she was chosen for the job was as part of a 'box-ticking' exercise.

PS: Perhaps Jay Hunt should have said 'Although we no longer have any middle-aged women presenting on a saturday night, we now have....' etc etc but then that wouldn't sound quite so impressive, would it?
Last edited by SideshowStu : 16-03-2010 at 17:46

It pretty obviously was!

In theory, I would agree with this.

However, both Arlene and Bruno stopped applying those qualities to their judging long ago, preferring to display blatant favouritism. It's a great shame that Bruno didn't meet the same fate as Arlene, but there you go ...

For me, Alesha's end of series report wasn't that bad. I'd certainly prefer her to either Len and Bruno, and definitely to Arlene. And that has nothing to do with either her age or her skin colour. Any faux pas Alesha made were just proof that SCD's Executive Producer and her Head of Department at the BBC had no idea how to manage the judges. As both those individuals will no longer be in place for SCD8, I can only hope that their replacements will show a little more backbone and common sense.

As for La Hunt's comments in The Guardian, she has displayed astonishingly well that senior BBC executives do indeed live on a different planet. SCD viewers don't really care what colour a judge/contestant is: they just want to be entertained. By flagging Alesha's age and skin colour, Hunt is making an issue out of something that isn't actually an issue at all.

Having worked on BBC shows, I have to say that BBC Diversity is actually hugely divisive and creates more tension than it resolves. Managers should be allowed to hire the best person for the job - period. The ethnic mix usually works out being about right without a committee having to police every single casting decision the BBC makes.

So if the BBC wants to make cuts, why not cut something that isn't really necessary anyway? Adios, BBC Diversity ... *waves*

Hey, perhaps they'll bring back Moira Stuart to take over from Brucie!

Nothing to with her profile then. Wow you possibly know less about the tv industry than Jay Hunt.

But at least you keep your stupidity confined to the forums.

Thank you Sally I've now read the whole article but what it fails to mention is that although Arlene will return with SYTYCD, she was only offered the job in the first place AFTER the furore over her replacement on Strictly kicked off. I have serious doubts that she'd have been offered the role otherwise tbh. What do you think?

Jay Hunt done another whoopsie!

She could have used the article to give reasons why Alesha is right for the job (relating to the public, contestants etc) rather than that claptrap, which I'd find a bit insulting if I was Alesha.

I have had the theory and it is only a theory.... that Arlene;s departure may well have had nothing to do with her age or anything else, but more to do with money... Given her close friendship with Lythgoe over at SYTYCD she may well have used the offer of a job on SYTYCD as a bit of a bargaining tool to up or at least maintain her salary when others were taking cuts, so maybe they called her bluff. Lythgoe owns the rights to SYTYCD so would be free to decide how much he would pay without any interference from the BBC

Jay Hunt seems to suffer from Feet in Mouth disease......no matter what you think of Aleshas ability as a judge why even bring the colour of her skin into the equation ?? i feel vaugely offended for her TBH,i'm sure she's happy to be judged (excuse the pun) on her ability (or inability depending on your opinion ) to do the job but for the colour of her skin to be given out as some sort of plus point in favour of her being on "primetime" TV will only bring more speculation as to why she was hired.......would anyone be happy with their skin colour being brought into a discussion about their suitability for a job ??,i don't think so.

Bruno certainly doesnt seem to need any encouragement, he was doing "His Act" every night on the tour, falling off his seat etc etc, without even Alesha being in the building.
But you are righet all we have is theories, but i think there is a tendancy on her for people to read far more into the situation than really exists.

This makes a LOT of sense! Especially considering the long lead time involved in planning and setting up a show like SYTYCD.

JJ

Whatever the true reason, it was rather 'fortuitous' that Arlene's appointment to SYTYCD came at a time when the beeb was taking considerable flack over the issue of ageism, real or perceived, within the organization

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010...ller-interview

The interview, for anyone who's interested.

So many good programmes have gone wrong under Jay Hunt's stewardship, Watchdog, The Restaurant, Strictly and most were absolutely disgusted with the Your Country needs you Eurovision show last sat.
As someone else stated I bet she isn't the least bit interested in Strictly but puts Alesha in the panel for the wrong reasons.

She's answering a question being put to her by a Guardian interviewer. Anyone who followed the Alesha scandal in that paper, as opposed to other papers with a different agenda, would know that the prime thrust of the criticism being directed at the BBC was that Arlene was being replaced due to her age, and yet Bruce, Len and Anton weren't, despite arguably being past it, and that this showed that the BBC was still a place for old white establishment men (a criticism very prominent a few years ago, and amongst the liberal left). In that context, her comment makes more sense (why mention Alesha's youth as a counter-point to a question if it's simply "why are you so ageist?") and is less inflammatory.

Undoubtedly she should have known that this comment would be reported in the wider media where the narrative was different, and entirely about older women being discriminated against in favour of younger woman and I agree with whoever up-thread stated that this sort of comment probably demonstrates either a heirarchy of "isms" or a belief that you can offset "ageism negative points" by scoring "racism plus points" and that it's a pretty stupid statement.

Having said that I don't think her saying that it's a good thing that the BBC has a black female presenter in prime time really means that Alesha was hired because she was black, any more than someone saying it's good that America has a black president means that they'd vote positively on racial grounds.