The BBC has a Gregg Wallace problem that goes beyond MasterChef

Rather than demonstrating transparency and accountability, recent news coverage shows how self-obsessed the organisation is, writes former head of BBC news Roger Mosey. But there’s no masking the stink coming from the kitchen...

Is the fate of a television cookery presenter more important than Syrian insurgents seizing Aleppo and the turmoil on the streets in Georgia? The BBC thinks so, based on its news judgements in recent days, which have seen exhaustive coverage of the accusations against Gregg Wallace take precedence over matters of life and death around the world.

Once again, the “independence” of BBC News has been trumpeted in its ability to report on the corporation’s own business – but for many, it reflects a self-obsession and lack of perspective which questions the judgement of the news division. Senior BBC executives share this view, I know, but they feel powerless to intervene without the risk of being accused of corporate cover-ups.

And yes, of course, the Wallace affair should be reported on – proportionately. It is both a genuine story, with obvious upset caused to those who’ve had a nasty experience with the former MasterChef host, and it is a further blow to the BBC which has been battling against misbehaviour by its presenters for decades.

What makes this case particularly damaging – and we should note that investigations are continuing and no conclusions have yet emerged – is that it seems that managers in the BBC and in the production company Banijay must have known that there was a Wallace Problem.

Some calibration is needed here. This is not the extreme criminal behaviour of Jimmy Savile or at the level of other BBC transgressors who went to jail, such as Stuart Hall. It is nothing like the abuse by Mohamed al-Fayed, on which the BBC broke the story and reported incisively.

What is believed with Wallace is that there was a use of crass language, and an alleged history of inappropriate sexual references, which was known – not least because some of it was said on the set in front of witnesses (it would be interesting to know what was edited out from the filming sessions). We also know that complaints were made by some highly credible participants in the show – albeit “middle-class woman of a certain age” – and that he was warned about his behaviour seven or eight years ago.

That makes it all the more perplexing that Wallace was still presenting MasterChef in 2024. The BBC and other broadcasters are adept at moving presenters on when they have outlived their usefulness – just ask the entirely innocent Question of Sport team.

It is not as if Wallace was essential to the success of MasterChef: significant episodes of the competition manage to run smoothly in the hands of Marcus Wareing and Monica Galetti. If you were drawing up a BBC grid of top talent, Wallace would be somewhere around the third tier, and if he went off to another broadcaster, you wouldn’t care.

So one of the questions for the BBC is why it persisted in renewing contracts, and why Banijay wanted to continue to work with Wallace, when there was at the very least an unpleasant odour in the kitchen. Many of the other presenter issues have involved bigger stars and more complex issues, but unfortunately for the BBC, this feeds in to a view that too many performers on TV and radio are indulged – and production teams and contestants are not adequately protected.

Now the BBC faces a dilemma of its own creation. If the reviews of the case come to the likely conclusions, it is impossible to see Wallace returning to MasterChef. But the pressure is on about whether the current series of MasterChef: The Professionals can continue – and what happens to the festive specials.

This may well prove to be a no-win for the BBC. Leave the programmes on and Wallace’s cheeky chappie routine will feel deeply inappropriate, especially at Christmas. The BBC’s press release promising “fireworks” and “great Christmas banter” has not aged well. Take them off and it will disappoint all the contestants in the shows and irritate viewers who have invested many hours in watching a competition unfold.

As a former BBC executive, I usually watch these kinds of issues with sympathy. We have all been there and we bear the scars of controversies that we have handled imperfectly but as best we could. However, the Wallace affair seems to be unusually self-inflicted in that it was entirely voluntary for the BBC to keep this man on air and promote him when he was known not to meet the highest standards of behaviour; and it is now another part of the corporation losing its marbles about the level of transgression.

It certainly adds fuel to the argument that there’s something wrong with the BBC’s culture and that it has not learnt from the lessons of the past.

Roger Mosey was previously the head of BBC Television News