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ITV given record fine by Ofcom |
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Written by Telly Addict
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Thursday, 08 May 2008 |
ITV have been given a record fine of £5.675 million by Ofcom following the problems highlighted in their handling of phone-in competitions
Ofcom said the fine was by far the highest ever imposed and reflected the seriousness of ITV's failures and the fact the failures had occurred on a number of occassions.
ITV shows Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar were all found to have "serious editorial issues".
Ofcom also said programme-makers showed total disregard for their own terms, conditions and broadcasting codes.
A separate report released by ITV revealed that The Catherine Tate Show was robbed of a prize at the 2005 British Comedy Awards.
Although The Catherine Tate Show collected more votes for the People's Choice Award, Ant and Dec were announced as the winners for their Saturday Night Takeaway programme.
Three competitions on Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway were found to be in breach of the regulators codes, including Jiggy Bank. The Ofcom inquiry found that entrants were selected purely based on where they lived, so many people ringing in wasted their money.
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 votes, so the wrong contestants were put forward for eviction.
Ant & Dec said they were not aware of the phone-in scandals, despite being credited as executive producers on Saturday Night Takeaway and Gameshow Marathon.
ITV made £7.8m from uncounted votes from the programmes in question and some 10 million telephone calls were affected.
ITV 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.
The fines for each error were:
Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway - £3m
Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon - £1.2m
Soapstar Superstar - £1.2m
ITV2+1 - £275,000
As well as the fine, ITV will have to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on six separate occasions.
Five other programmes including I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! were found to be in breach of Ofcom's broadcasting code, but no sanctions were imposed for the breaches.
Ofcom also investigated allegations made about the last three series of X Factor, in particular the results of the 2007 finals, but found they did not breach the code.
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