Jonathan Ross has accused the BBC of becoming dull in the years following his Sachsgate scandal on Radio 2.
The presenter faced a public backlash after he appeared on Russell Brand’s show back in 2008 and left lewd messages on Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs’ answerphone.
In the messages comedian Brand also bragged about having sex with Sachs’s granddaughter Georgina Baillie.
The BBC was fined £150,000 by regulator Ofcom for the incident, with Brand resigning and Ross, who hosted a Radio 2 show for 10 years, being suspended for three months.
Talking to Dermot O’Leary’s People, Just People podcast, Ross admitted he rarely tunes into the radio station these days.
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He said: “I wish it was a little bit more interesting. A lot of the time it feels like they don’t take risks any more, which they used to.
“Obviously I’m part of the reason they don’t do that any more, because of the huge cock-up of me and Russell on his show.
“It’s one of the reasons they allowed themselves to be beaten back into a position of ‘Oh, don’t take risks, don’t take chances.’
“To an extent I sympathise with that, but at the same time that’s why I don’t listen a lot.”
Although there was huge public outcry over the incident. Ross says he never considered walking away from the BBC as he believed the issue was “blown out of all proportion”.
He explained: “I didn’t want the people who were going for me and going for Russell to win. That would have been their victory.
“I didn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but after the recording I actually said. ‘You know you can’t put that out unless we have his [Sachs’s] permission?... that’s why the BBC couldn’t fire me.”
The BBC declined to comment when approached by The Mirror.
Sachs, who was most famous for playing Manuel in Fawlty Towers, hit out at the time branding the duo's comments “deeply hurtful”. He died in December 2016 aged 86.
Last week, Paul O’Grady became the latest big name to quit Radio 2 in the latest BBC shake-up.
In a statement, the much-loved presenter, 67, said: "I've loved doing my Sunday afternoon show for the last 14 years and I'm going to miss my listeners as well as the fun I've had with my producer Malcolm Prince, but I feel that now is the right time to go."
In July, Vanessa Feltz told her listeners she was also quitting the station after 20 years so she could “catch up on her beauty sleep”.
Other big names cut in a scheduling shake-up in June included Craig Charles, Steve Wright and Tony Blackburn.
Graham Norton and Chris Evans have both stepped down from their prime roles at the station in recent years to move to Virgin Radio.
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