Last night, Radio 4 should have broadcast a programme in the "In Business" series, "Called to Account". Peter Day was to have reported on why the world's four leading accountancy firms - Price Waterhouse Cooper, KPMG, Ernst & Young and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu - are allegedly facing increased scrutiny from financial authorities on both sides of the Atlantic.
This programme was replaced at fairly short notice by something that seems to have been thrown together in a hurry about the possible exit of Greece from the euro zone. Given that there has been speculation about a return to the drachma for months, if not years, and that a decision on this will not be made until the results of next month's Greek elections are known, there was hardly an urgent need for a programme on the subject. More suspiciously, the promised iPlayer version of "Called to Account" has not appeared.
My suspicion is that the programme has been not just injuncted by one or more of the firms, but super-injuncted in that the BBC has been forced to conceal the existence of the injunction.
1 comment:
The programme finally aired last night. From the amount of ground covered more than once, it could be inferred that some editing had taken place and the programme padded out. It raised a couple of interesting points, but the subject of a clash of interests (accountancy firms acting as consultants and auditors for the same corporation) was not discussed in any detail. For hard cases, one is going to have to rely on Private Eye.
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