Radio

KIDS TV legend Johnny Ball has today hit out at the BBC and accused them of ageism.

The national treasure, 88, claims his broadcaster daughter Zoe Ball, now 55, was suddenly “gone” from Radio 2 when she reached the age of 54.

Zoe announced she was leaving her coveted Breakfast Show slot in 2024, after six years at the helm.

The radio star then briefly returned last year for a Saturday slot on Radio 2, but left again in December.

Johnny, who himself had a long career at the Beeb, having fronted kids shows like Play School, has now given his opinion on her departure from the Beeb – after she had worked for them since the 90s.

Speaking at The Dorchester Literary Festival, the TV star said: “I did Play School for 17 years, I wrote nearly all of Play Away then I did Think Of A Number and Think Again.

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‘I loved every minute of it. But what happens when you are 50 at the BBC? Gone! Zoe was 54. Gone! You cannot believe it because we gave so much to the BBC.’

Johnny also gave his verdict on Strictly Come Dancing’s new hosts, Emma Willis, 50, Johannes Radebe, 39, and Josh Widdicombe, 43, after his daughter Zoe missed out on the job.

“Josh is not a Bruce Forsyth. He is a lovely bloke and I have met him a couple of times but he is not a domineering comedian as some comedians like Bruce Forsyth were,” he said.

“When I did Strictly, and I only did three shows, but on each show I gave Brucie a joke and he used them and he said to me ”I have got a writer here and he does b****r all so thanks very much’.

“And he said to me ‘You should never have gone out’ but that’s another story.”

Before quitting Radio 2, Zoe was one of the Beeb’s highest-paid female stars, taking home just under £1M a year.

“LAUGHING” Russell Brand sexually assaulted a radio worker in a “violent, sloppy and frenzied” attack as his entourage stood by and watched, a court heard.

The comedian, 51, is accused of forcing six women into sexual acts and kissing and groping them in an “obsessive” campaign to sleep with 5,000 women.

On the fifth day of his trial, jurors heard from a woman who was in her 20s working at a radio station in the mid-2000s when Brand allegedly sexually assaulted her.

She told Southwark Crown Court Brand was a “perfect stranger” to her at the time and said his alleged assault was “violent”, “sloppy” and “frenzied”.

Describing the alleged attack, she added: “It was hard, I would say it was sloppy, he kissed my mouth, he just was kissing me and it was hard, it was very hard.

“He was kissing me all down my neck, his hands at the same time were all over me.”

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Asked about where his hands were, she said: “He touched my bum, he touched my breast, he had his hand on my waist and his other hand was just pinning me against the wall, and his body was just pressed up against me.”

The woman added: “It was rough, it was very, very rough. It was hard, I would say that his whole body was pressed against me, the kisses were hard and sloppy, going down my neck

“The reason I used the word frenzied is because it was just, it was violent.”

She said four members of Brand’s entourage including a woman were in the room at the time but “did nothing”.

The woman wept as she told jurors: “I wonder why those people didn’t do anything to stop him.”

She also told the court she had locked eyes” with the other woman and was “pleading with her” to stop what was allegedly happening.

The woman said she was “stunned” and “in a haze” but managed to push Brand away and told him to “f*** off”.

She added: “I remember he made like a sound, that was like funny – ha ha – like that.”

Jurors heard Brand allegedly preyed on the complainants between 1999 and 2009 in a bid to satisfy his “voracious” sexual appetite.

One of the women was allegedly raped in a hotel room in Bournemouth in 1999 after a Labour conference.

The woman said Brand had suddenly “changed” from being “camp, friendly, and effeminate” to “monster-like”.

Jurors were also shown pictures that Brand allegedly made one of the women take moments before he raped her.

The images – released by police – show the comedian topless in a pair of white trousers blowing a kiss to the camera.

She told police she remembers feeling “frightened” after Brand forced her to take the pictures of him on her camera.

She added: “I took pictures of him on my camera – he made me take them.

“I was frightened. I remember feeling ‘what on earth have I got myself into’ – and then he did rape me.

“He pushed me onto the bed. He did take my trousers off.”

She previously claimed he emerged topless from the toilet and “was prancing around the room, a bit like an ostrich, doing silly walks like Basil Fawlty”.

The woman later added: “I found his body quite snake-like and disgusting. It made me feel sick, if I’m being honest.”

Another alleged victim who claimed she was targeted by Brand while working at MTV in 2001 also gave evidence.

At the time he was the flagship presenter at the video music channel, jurors heard.

The woman said Brand was “pleading” for her to join him in the toilet before he “grabbed me by the arm and started to pull me in, saying ‘come on, come in with me’.”

She described Brand as a “wild-eyed maniac” during the alleged assault and said she was left “bewildered” and “confused”.

Prosecutor Riel Karmy-Jones KC dubbed the comedian a “sexual predator” who was “ruthless, calculated and manipulative”.

She also said women have told police he was “childlike in his expectation that his every desire should be met”.

The court heard the alleged offences took place when Brand’s “public profile was taking off”.

He allegedly prayed on women in a number of locations – including workplaces, a toilet cubicle in a bar and at his home address.

The fifth alleged victim met Brand after seeing his show at the Hammersmith Apollo in London with a friend in 2009.

He allegedly told her his age range was from “16 to death” before she was invited to a backstage bar where they kissed and had a threesome.

The woman claims she went to his home the next day where Brand told her: “Your hair smells funny”.

He then made her take a shower and wash her hair while he watched through a glass shower cubicle, it was said.

Ms Karmy-Jones said once in the bedroom, they had consensual sex but afterwards Brand “flipped” the woman on to her front and on all fours and allegedly penetrated her anally.

Afterwards, jurors heard the comedian told her to “clean up the mess you have made”.

The sixth woman worked for Channel 4 when she met Brand while he was filming a project.

She said she was informed Brand was “unhappy” and the situation would not improve unless she gave him a massage, jurors were told.

The woman claimed he walked up to a chair she was sitting on and placed his head directly into her groin area.

Brand has denied three counts of rape, three of sexual assault and one count of indecent assault against six women.

The trial continues.

German authorities briefly closed an airport and scrambled fighter jets to escort a passenger plane on Tuesday following an emergency alert indicating a hijacking was taking place on board. However, the alert had been accidentally triggered by a radio “malfunction”.

Corendon Airlines said its Boeing 737-800, which was en route from the Greek holiday island of Corfu to Nuremberg, Germany, sent out an emergency code while it was flying over Croatia “due to a brief malfunction in the radio communication system”.

In a statement, the airline said that “no emergency situation occurred”, and the 178 passengers, flight crew and aircraft had not been in danger at any point. The plane landed safely in Nuremberg.

What happened?

German police said Corendon Airlines flight XR456 “inadvertently” sent out an emergency “squawk” alert with the code 7500 while flying over Croatia on Tuesday.

A squawk is a four-digit code a pilot sends via the jet’s transponder to air traffic control. The code 7500 tells air traffic controllers that a hijacking is in progress.

However, air traffic controllers were unable to make contact with the pilots or crew, causing the alarm to be raised further. It is unclear why this happened.

“The aircraft could no longer be reached by radio to clarify the situation”, prompting warnings to be activated in several European countries, police said.

A Rafale fighter jet was scrambled from Croatia to intercept the Boeing passenger jet, while the German military also dispatched warplanes.

Police cordoned off the Albrecht Dürer airport in Nuremberg as a precaution until they knew the reason the pilot had sent the hijack alert.

Police spokesman Michael Petzold explained that authorities had “received a code directly from the cockpit that suggested a hijacking”.

“Since we were then unable to reach the cockpit, and the tower was also unable to contact the cockpit, we had to assume the worst – that it might indeed be a hijacking,” Petzold said.

The incident disrupted flights, with six flights delayed and two inbound flights diverted to other airports as a precaution, a Nuremberg airport spokesperson said.

Why are aviation authorities so concerned?

The hijack scare has come amid heightened concerns about aviation security after the copilot on board a Flydubai jet bound for Israel from Dubai attacked the captain with an emergency crash axe, forcing the flight to make an emergency landing in Saudi Arabia on September 30.

On Friday, the United Arab Emirates’ prosecutor general said the copilot was on a “suicide” mission to crash the plane at Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv and called the incident a “terrorist attack”.

Also, before the false hijack alert in the early hours of Tuesday, flights had been briefly disrupted at Nuremberg ‌airport after pilots reported suspected drone sightings.

Authorities across Europe have already stepped up surveillance of the skies in recent weeks after a series of mostly mysterious drone incidents and concerns about Russian hybrid warfare.

Western nations, including Germany, have accused Moscow of launching a campaign of sabotage, espionage and disruption to undermine European support for Ukraine and destabilise the continent.

Several German airports have had to suspend operations for brief periods in recent months due to drone activity, with suspicion often falling on Russia.

Last month, the German government blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle airport in August using a drone laden with explosives. Berlin closed the Russian consulate among other measures.

Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the allegations, saying Berlin “fabricated” the evidence. However, in light of the concerns, NATO’s top general told the Warsaw Security Forum earlier this week that the alliance has a new war plan for countering a Russian attack on its members, embedding lessons learned from the Ukrainian front lines.

How common are radio glitches and false hijack alerts?

Radio glitches are common, but incidents rarely escalate to major security events because pilots use back-up radios to communicate with air traffic controllers when they lose communication signals.

In 2019, a pilot flying an Air Europa jet from Amsterdam to Madrid accidentally transmitted hijack alert 7500. For half an hour, aviation authorities thought the alarm was a genuine emergency and followed safety protocols, which disrupted flights and led to the evacuation of part of Schipol airport in the Netherlands.

In 2011, a flight from Chicago to Germany was diverted to Toronto when a pilot spilled coffee and accidentally set off a hijack alarm. The spill caused distress signals to go out, including the 7500 transponder code.

Last month, director general Matt Brittin said the BBC’s financial situation and changing audience habits “may well mean” some channels and radio stations have to close so resources can be invested in on-demand services.

Brittin told BBC One’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg that “we wouldn’t guarantee any programme or any channel will exist forever”.

In June, the BBC announced 550 job cuts in news, nations and TV and radio content as part of its first stage in its plan to save £500m across the corporation over the next two years.

Staff were told of proposals including ending Radio 4’s The World Tonight, and reducing the number of permanent presenters on Today from five to four, with a single anchor on Saturdays.

It was revealed that BBC One’s Breakfast would no longer be shown on Sunday mornings, and that the production teams making Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg and Newsnight would merge.

It followed April’s announcement that the BBC would cut between 1,800 and 2,000 jobs – or almost one in 10 – in an attempt to tackle “significant financial pressures”.

Last week, an influential group of MPs said the BBC licence fee should be extended to cover services other than TV, and that the corporation’s charter review should be scrapped and made permanent.

In its recommendations, the DCMS committee also said that political appointments to the BBC board should end, to improve public trust.

Radio personality, jazz singer and former BET host Angela Stribling died on Sunday of cancer.

Stribling “passed away peacefully at home … after a courageous two-year battle with brain cancer,” her husband, Ken Washington, posted to her Instagram account. “Her sister Darlene and I were by her side.”

A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Stribling attended the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City and took a position with American Airlines at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport after college. She spent four years as host of BET entertainment news program “Screen Scene” and helped launch BET Jazz, hosting “Jazz Central,” “Jazz Discovery” and “Jazz Scene” for the network, according to a posting about her death by WHUR 96.3 Howard University Radio.

She worked as a reporter for “Evening Magazine” and co-host of “On Time” on Baltimore television and as a news intern at WTTG-TV and at WOL-AM in Washington, D.C., before joining WHUR-FM. That’s where she became the first woman to host “The Original Quiet Storm,” a program of “soulful slow jams and romantic melodies” that recently celebrated 50 years of being on air.

“Pillow Talk,” WHUR’s long-running late-night program hosted by Stribling, centered on relationships, conversation and music.

“Angela Stribling was a remarkable talent, but what made her truly special was the person she was,” WHUR general manager Sean Plater said in the station’s tribute. “Her voice was beautiful, her presence was calming, and her spirit was genuine. She had a way of making people feel welcome and valued, and that gift extended far beyond the radio. Angela was part of the WHUR family, and her loss is deeply felt by all of us. We will remember her not only for the incredible career she built, but for the love, kindness and light she shared with so many people.”

Stribling was also a classically trained jazz vocalist, who performed at New York City venues including the Rainbow Room, the Supper Club and the Soul Cafe. She traveled the world and shared the stage with legendary artists, including Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan.

“Her sultry voice made her a staple on radio in the D.C. area and on Sirius. She did countless voiceover work, she sang and had parts in movies. I remember her calling me when she got a role in the Eddie Murphy movie ‘Distinguished Gentlemen,’ ” former BET colleague Ed Gordon wrote on Facebook. “She was a sweet soul.”