a bbc boss has insulted nearly half the country by dismissing them using marketing jargon creative director alan yentob was trying to rebut the allegation that the corporation caters only for the ‘metropolitan elite’ the executive, who earns around £330,000 a year, insisted that the bbc appeals to all sorts of audiences because it airs programmes that ‘reach out to… c2s [and] des’ scroll down for video  bbc creative director alan yentob has been mocked for using marketing speak to deny that the broadcaster was elitist describing working class people as 'c2s' and 'ds' as he defended jeremy clarkson's sacking  mr yentob's comments quickly attracted the attention of social media users, who criticised the way he had described viewers  robert macdonald, tweeted: 'did alan yentob really just say 'lots of our programmes reach out to c2 ds' (in rejecting bbc is for 'metropolitan elite')?' c2 and de are terms used by marketing professionals to describe the working classes – more than 47 per cent of the uk population mr yentob’s extraordinary declaration on newsnight on wednesday was an attempt to prove what an inclusive organisation the bbc is, amid concern that a huge swathe of its audience will stop tuning in now jeremy clarkson has been axed from top gear however, his comments backfired as viewers used social media to accuse him of arrogance and sounding so ‘out of touch’ they thought it was a spoof they accused mr yentob of using obscure jargon that only the metropolitan elite would understand, in a way that suggested that working class viewers are a niche audience john hemming, liberal democrat mp for birmingham yardley, accused mr yentob of ‘arrogance’ which only confirmed his status as part of the metropolitan elite he said: ‘in essence, he’s admitting that the bbc doesn’t do much for the working classes, and he is doing that in a way that is not making it easy for many people to understand’ mr yentob – who earns more than £180,000 a year as creative director as well as an estimated £150,000 fee for editing and presenting the bbc arts series imagine – made the remarks as he attempted to explain the decision to fire clarkson mr yentob was appearing on newsnight to defend the sacking of jeremy clarkson, whose contract is not being renewed after he attacked top gear producer oisin tymon  twitter user sacred antinous wrote: 'yentob describes all those who aren't 'metropolitan elite' as c2des our licence fee is so well spent on this man of the people #newsnight' the terms c2s and ds are marketing terms to describe working class people  presenter emily maitlis asked if getting rid of the top gear host would make it harder for the bbc to reach ‘a demographic increasingly disregarded’ by a corporation which ‘plays largely to the metropolitan elite’ apparently unaware of the irony, mr yentob responded: ‘i don’t know that i would buy that, actually, about the metropolitan elite 'there are quite a lot of programmes which reach out to audiences which are c2s, des, which aren’t the metropolitan elite’ the terms are part of the approximated social grade, which defines social groups by occupation ab (22 per cent of the uk) broadly covers higher and intermediate managerial c1 (31 per cent) is supervisory, clerical and junior managerial c2 (21 per cent) is skilled manual while de (26 per cent) is semi skilled and unskilled, plus the unemployed others questioned whether the bbc really were keen to make programmes that appealed to all audiences  toby wood said: 'only metropolitan elite luvvies speak like alan yentob on @bbcnewsnight   he's in more opaque bubble than westminster politicians #clarkson' a bbc spokesman said: ‘there’s nothing elitist about making programmes and services used by 97 per cent of people every week, and that’s the point alan made’ mr yentob admitted that axing clarkson marked ‘a bad day’ for the bbc but he said director general lord hall felt he had no choice after the top gear star’s unprovoked physical and verbal attack on his producer however, he refused to rule out clarkson returning to the bbc clarkson  attacked mr tymon (pictured) leaving him in such a state that he later took himself to a&e  the bbc has said that top gear will continue without clarkson, but there are doubts as to whether co presenters richard hammond and james may will return  consumers are sometimes grouped into classes or social grades used to describe their social grade and earnings for market research purposes social grade a denotes people of upper middle class who have higher manergerial, administrative or professional roles, b and c1 are middle class, c2 are the skilled working class, d are working class and e are low grade workers or state pensioners with no other income these social grade demographics were originally developed by the national readership survey to provide audience research for advertising in newspapers and magazines to show the audience for each publication however, they now more widely used in market and statistical research and analysis, as well as social commentary
yentob newsnight jeremy clarkson bbc alan yentob
alan yentob was appearing on newsnight over jeremy clarkson row  denied bbc was elitist as programmes attract audiences that are 'c2, ds' twitter users said use of the terms showed that yentob was elitist  terms are used in marketing to describe working class consumers 