The absurd hypocrisy of sacking Angus Deayton

TV executives take class-A drugs, have affairs and drink to excess. This doesn't stop them imagining themselves as moral guardians

So, goodbye Angus. I suppose a lot of television executives will be gloating this week, hoping that the sacking of Mr Deayton will be seen as a kind of warning to that overpaid, stroppy band of self-centred grown-up children they resent paying vast sums of money to present prime-time television programmes. As a former television executive (and on-screen host), I have seen this tortured relationship from both sides over many years. Presenters are trouble – from the moment you want a particular one so badly to host one of your hot new shows, to the inevitable day when the contract's been signed and they start behaving like people who have a mind of their own.

In a television executive's dream world, presenters would be perfect if they just turned up on time, read the script (in all its many rewrites), accepted the pay you pencilled in for them in the budget, went home and drank no more than 21 units of alcohol a week, didn't do drugs and only slept with the partner their agent told you about. After series two, presenters will always ask for more money. After series three, when the ratings are solid, they will threaten to defect to another channel. In the case of Frank Skinner, he did. More often than not, however, television companies pay up, which is how Angus ended up on £50,000 an episode, before it was halved earlier this year.

Television executives are craven individuals, many of whom take class-A drugs (sometimes in the office), have affairs, pay for sex, lie to their partners, and certainly drink to excess. But that doesn't stop them imagining themselves as some sort of moral guardians "protecting" the viewing and listening public from exposure to any kind of embarrassing truths about the people they regularly enjoy on the airwaves.

The hypocrisy in television and radio production is breathtaking. There used to be an extremely famous senior male entertainment producer who would recruit female hostesses for his shows by running sex-and-drug parties at an airport hotel. Another top male director used to have sex with a network of youthful male post-room assistants and quickly promote them to key production roles. There are female executives who've literally slept their way around the top table. But of course this is all "off-screen" activity, and somehow not as reprehensible as that enjoyed by performers and presenters.

When employing a presenter, television executives never ask agents, "Is he/she a regular drug user or rubber fetishist? Do they have sex with underage members of their own sex?" All they are concerned about is getting the face everyone wants on the screen for the price they can afford.

In my time, I have put one female presenter through rehab and instituted on-the-spot drug testing, and been asked to tell another male idol to get a facelift or put on weight as the bags under his eyes had become the size of Louis Vuitton trunks. I was never asked to sack a presenter for drug abuse, just to "have a word with them".

Presenters are like designer clothes, utterly desirable, but with a limited fashionability. When they stop delivering the ratings, you've got to offload them into daytime telly for the duration of their contract, or hatch a plot so your rivals will start to believe they really need them. Can I just mention the words Vanessa Feltz? Look at Esther Rantzen, once the mainstay of Sunday evening prime-time viewing with That's Life, now languishing in late afternoon. At least she's proved she can hang on in there.

Unfortunately for television executives and their weirdly moralistic view of the world, we the viewing public adore some of these badly behaved on-screen people they employ in some of their most successful shows. Funnily enough, we don't lose sleep if these on-screen faces take drugs and get caught with prostitutes. After all, we are intelligent enough to realise that most of what's on television is a highly vacuous confection, and at the end of a day spent commuting on over-crowded roads and malfunctioning railways, we want to be entertained.

We've had hours in the office fitting into some ludicrous pecking order, got home to discover the washing machine's broken, and when we turn on Have I Got News For You we want escapism, pure and simple. We know they probably see the questions in advance. We accept that Angus Deayton is a smug bastard reading out lines written by a highly paid team of writers. Sure, Have I Got News For You contains spontaneous wit, but it is also a highly rehearsed and finely tuned comedy machine that we, in our millions, have tuned into week in and week out for 12 years knowing that we will always be rewarded with an anecdote or two we can share with our friends the next day. Television doesn't get much better than that, from the executive's point of view. A rock-solid winner.

And so the sacking of Mr Deayton is not only a mistake on the grounds of hypocrisy, but could possibly advance the end of the series, which would be a disaster in terms of the BBC's bankable assets. Angus Deayton was not a "commentator of headlines", as the press statement announcing his dismissal rather pompously informed us, but a highly skilled actor reading out a script, and his talent was to adapt and incorporate dozens of changes during the highly pressurised recording time in a way that perfectly balanced his two egocentric team captains.

I've appeared on the show many times and always found it thoroughly enjoyable, hoping I have more in common with intelligent guests such as Mo Mowlam than the appalling Christine Hamilton. Now what host would seek to step into Angus's shoes, fearing that The News of the World and the top brass at the BBC will require them to supply a full dossier of all drugs consumed over the past two years and a list of every sexual act other than in the missionary position with a regular partner?

In the case of Angus Deayton, the public are far more robust and forgiving than his employers. And don't forget the cautionary tale of Johnnie Walker, removed from his post as one of the most popular DJs on Radio 2, following News of the World allegations about sex and drugs. He apologised, and after a discreet amount of time was reinstated. Thank goodness. Do we really care what disc jockeys over 50 do in their spare time? The fact is, the man should never have been removed from his job in the first place.

In the case of the male television presenter now accused of raping Ulrika, things are very different. Over 25 women have now said that this person bullied them into sex they did not want. I am not concerned with his alleged drug intake, but the way he misused his celebrity status. Whether he broke the law isn't really the issue. What he may have done is abuse vulnerable women on a regular basis. And if true, in my book that warrants being dismissed from the position he exploited so cynically.