Jonathan Ross Bafta gives BBC a headache

Jonathan Ross has managed to give his BBC bosses another headache: he has been nominated for the best entertainment performance Bafta for his controversial chat show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, only weeks after he returned to television following a three-month ban.

The BBC1 show, along with his BBC2 radio programme, were both pulled last October after Ross and Russell Brand left a series of lewd messages on the answering machine of Andrew Sachs, the actor who played Manuel in Fawlty Towers. When the Sachs affair blew up, 48-year-old Ross was already in deep water for a series of risque moments on Friday Night, including an interview with Gwyneth Paltrow in which he told the actress he "would fuck her" if his wife gave him permission.

The Bafta nominations, announced this morning ahead of the awards ceremony on April 26, pit Ross against Harry Hill, Ant and Dec for I'm A Celebrity and QI presenter Stephen Fry, one of Ross's defenders during the Manuelgate affair, when many at the BBC felt he should be sacked.

Luckily for the Beeb, there is a second story in today's Bafta nominations which the corporation was able to to lead with on its website, while giving scant coverage to the Ross news: June Brown, who plays Dot Cotton in the BBC1 soap EastEnders, is nominated for best actress - the first time a soap star has been nominated for the top acting award in 22 years. (The last was Jean Alexander, who played Hilda Ogden in Coronation Street.)

She will be competing with Anna Maxwell Martin for Poppy Shakespeare, Maxine Peake for Hancock and Joan and Andrea Riseborough for Margaret Thatcher: The Long Walk To Finchley.

Ken Stott is nominated for best actor in the biographical drama Hancock and Joan, which received two other nominations as well. Stott is up against Ben Whishaw for Criminal Justice and Jason Isaacs for his role as the comedian Harry H Corbett in The Curse of Steptoe. ·