BBC apology for Ross-Brand call
A BBC apology to "licence fee payers" for the "grossly offensive" phone call made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross is being broadcast twice on Radio 2.
The apology will be run just after 10am when Ross, who has been suspended without pay for three months for the prank, would normally be hosting his weekly show.
It will then be repeated just after 9pm, when Brand, who resigned as a result of the fallout from the broadcast, made on his own Saturday night show, would usually be on the airwaves.
The BBC will say the phone call to Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs answering machine should never have been recorded or broadcast.
It will apologise to its "audiences as licence fee payers" and to Mr Sachs for the incident, in which Ross claimed Brand had slept with the actor's granddaughter Georgina Baillie.
On Friday it was revealed a second BBC Radio 2 executive had resigned in the wake of the controversy, which sparked more than 40,000 complaints.
Radio 2 boss Lesley Douglas quit on October 30 and that was followed by the resignation of David Barber, the Radio 2 head of specialist music and compliance.
A BBC spokeswoman said: "We can confirm that David Barber has resigned from the BBC."
It is thought Barber's job would have involved checking that content complied with BBC guidelines.
The BBC has not identified the person responsible for approving the broadcast which went out on October 18. An internal inquiry is currently being carried out into the events which led to the call being broadcast.
