Chaos at the BBC after Judi announcement

BBC bosses were completely unprepared for the backlash from listeners after it was revealed that Judi Spiers had been axed from her BBC Radio Devon mid-morning slot.

An insider has been telling the Daily about the scenes of chaos which ensued following the announcement shorty after 10am on Monday.

It has been revealed that:

• Extra staff had to be drafted in to handle the volume of calls
• The Radio Devon email account crashed
• An interview with Judi was pulled from BBC Spotlight under the instruction of management
• No press release had been prepared explaining the presenter’s departure
• A video of Judi saying thank you to her listeners was taken down from the station’s Facebook page earlier today
• Managing editor Mark Grinnell has been keeping an extremely low profile

The insider said: “It was pandemonium. The phones were ringing off their hooks, the email account fell over and management had not even written a standard press release.

“It was almost as if they didn’t expect the announcement to ruffle any feathers but boy were they wrong!”

Meanwhile, a former colleague of Judi’s who now works elsewhere in the country in a senior role, said he was flabbergasted by the decision to drop Judi.

He said: “I understand the budget has been stretched since the decision to appoint Simon Bates to the breakfast show. Whether this has anything to do with this only Mr Grinnell knows.”

A twitter account set up called @BringBackJudi has gained almost 500 followers in just 24 hours including Little Britain star Matt Lucas.

An accompanying website was set up yesterday and has already had more than 100 likes.