The gloves are off for Simon Mayo who has slammed the BBC as ‘soul destroying’ after he quit the corporation and took up a new job at Sony.
The 63-year-old radio host famously presented a film review show at the BBC via various channels for two decades before he dropped out, or was pushed out, of working with the network and the film-review show was officially cancelled in March.
He and co-host Mark Kermode, 58, were then snapped up by Sony who promised to support their work like never before in a deal that will see them broadcast their film reviews in a twice-weekly podcast.
Now, in a scathing attack against the Beeb, Simon has branded the Corporation as ‘soul destroying’ and claims he and Mark would “never” be able to make their show for them due to their current approach to political correctness, and that the Beeb held them back when it came to expanding their broadcast dreams.
He told the Radio Times: “The truth of the matter is, if you were going to start a new film show on the BBC right now there would be no chance of me and Mark being asked to do it.”
He goes on to blame that fact that he and Mark are two “middle-aged” men as the reason the BBC would reject them today.
Turning his attention to his new deal with Sony, he explained: “When Sony come along and say, ‘we will invest in this programme in a way that it hasn't been invested in so far’ you think, that's interesting.”
He went on to explain a situation where the BBC made it too difficult to expand their program.
Simon said: “For instance, we did a very successful short-film competition called Well Done U.
“The quality of the entries was brilliant, but there are so many BBC hoops to jump through to actually get something like that on the air that after a while people stop trying, because it's soul destroying. This way we'll be able to bring things like that back.”
Simon was able to maintain his film review commitments to the BBC even after he quit his Radio 2 show in 2019 in order to join rival radio station Scala Radio.
Meanwhile Mark continues to work for the BBC presenting a weekly TV film review on Fridays – but their BBC podcast has come to an end this year.
Sony will now produce their film-review programme as a twice-weekly podcast called Kermode & Mayo's Take.
The BBC has suffered a mass exodus of well-established talent in recent years – with news host Emily Maitlis, journalist Jon Sopel, and political expert Andrew Marr all hightailing it from the Corporation in recent months.
While BBC Breakfast was dealt a blow last month when recent Strictly star Dan Walker announced he was quitting the channel to take up a new role at Channel Five.
Reports have suggested early morning favourite Dan was wooed away by the promise of more money as his salary is tipped to increase from £295,000-295,999 per year to £350,000.
While Andrew Marr opted to quit the corporation for a new radio job at LBC where he would be able to express his personal political views without fear of ramifications from BBC bosses.
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