Source: BBC News

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7373131.stm

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ITV hit with record £5.68m fine

ITV presenters Ant and Dec denied any knowledge of the irregularities

ITV has been fined a record £5.68m by Ofcom for abusing premium rate phone services in viewer competitions.

The media regulator said the fine was by far the highest ever imposed and reflected the seriousness of ITV's failures and their repeated nature.

TV shows Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar were all found to have "serious editorial issues".

Last year a report found viewers had spent millions on unfair competitions.

"This was a thorough set of investigations which uncovered institutionalised failure within ITV that enabled the broadcaster to make money from misconduct on mass audience programmes," Ofcom chief executive, Ed Richards said.

The media regulator also said programme-makers showed "total disregard" for their own terms, conditions and broadcasting codes.

Three competitions on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway were found to be in breach of the regulators' codes, including Jiggy Bank.

Entrants were selected purely based on where they lived, so many people ringing in wasted their money.

Breaches

On Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, winners were selected based on how entertaining and lively they sounded, and on Soapstar Superstar producers overrode the viewers' vote, so the wrong participants were put forward for eviction.

"Ofcom's announcement today is an appropriate moment to restate ITV's unreserved apology to the public for breaches that took place between 2003 and January 2007," executive chairman of ITV Michael Grade, said.

ITV made £7.8m from uncounted votes from the programmes in question and some 10 million telephone calls were affected.

The broadcaster pledged to give back the sum to charity and for viewer compensation, and this fact was taken into account by Ofcom in reaching its decision on the level of the fines.

The penalty is almost three times higher than the previous record of £2 million that was imposed on GMTV by Ofcom in September 2007.

But as ITV could have been fined up to £70m - 5% of its commercial revenue - analysts have described the size of the fine as very small.

"For a company that's delivering to its shareholders £150m - £200m a year of free cash flow, i.e profit, money, this is on the pathetic end of not very much," broadcasting analyst Steve Hewlett told the BBC News channel.

As well as the fine, ITV will have to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on six separate occasions.
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ITV is replacing the telephone system in its offices across England and Wales and all new direct dialling in numbers are now 0844 revenue sharing numbers.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous that Ofcom can only fine them up to £5m - that is practically spare change to any broadcaster!

And i have a nasty feeling that they will squirm and wriggle their way out of the fine or at least get it greatly reduced.

Strangely, it appears that fee has been "reduced" because ITV said they would repay it to voters and charities!!

Looks like ITV may be changing its office numbers back from 0844 to geographical.  ::)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2008/may/11/celebrity

ITV's number is up

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A footnote to the ITV phone-in affair. Last year, the broadcaster changed all its phone lines over to 0844 numbers which cost 5p per minute to ring and allow them to share in call profits. Now sources tell me it's swapping back to normal London numbers. 'Having moved the whole company over, we're now all being moved back,' I'm informed. 'They turned out to be expensive to ring from a mobile number and impossible to get through to from abroad.' A timely decision.
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More on this here

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1020513/ITV-set-escape-seven-figure-fine-Ant-Dec-vote-rigging-scandal.html

Source: Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/15/itv.ofcom

ITV company faces fine over a second British Comedy Awards deception
Friday August 15 2008 14:53 BST

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The ITV company handling the phone voting for the British Comedy Awards could be fined more than £100,000 by regulator Ofcom following the discovery of a new deception over the show's People's Choice award.

Ofcom is understood to have discovered that in addition to viewers being misled in 2005 - when Ant and Dec were wrongly given the People's Choice award - there were problems with the same category at the British Comedy Awards in 2004.

Viewers watching the ceremony in December 2004 were still encouraged to vote after the prize had actually been awarded to Little Britain stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams.

Because the 2004 ceremony was not aired live - but shown "as live" with a delay - audiences were still voting on premium-rate lines after the phones should have been closed.

In 2004, the People's Choice award - which is voted for by viewers during the show - was a battle between Little Britain, Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Jonathan Ross's BBC1 chatshow.

It is not known how close the voting was between the three shows.

However, it is understood that just under £5,000 was wrongly taken from viewers and that the voting was not as close as it was in 2005, when Ant and Dec were said to have narrowly beaten comedian Catherine Tate.

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