ITV Handed Record £5.675m Fine Over Phone-In Scandal

Ofcom has fined ITV a record £5.675 million for its part in the premium rate phone-in scandal that rocked broadcasting last year.

Ofcom said that the fine, the highest imposed by this or any of the previous regulators, “reflects not only the seriousness of ITV’s failures but also their repeated nature”.

The previous highest fine imposed by Ofcom was £2 million on GMTV in September 2007 (see GMTV Given £2 Million Fine).

In its ruling the regulator said that it fined ITV £3 million for serious breaches of the broadcasting code on the show Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway between 14 January 2003 and 21 October 2006.

It found that three competitions in the show, Grab the Ads, Jiggy Bank and Win the Ads, were in breach of the code.

Ofcom added that another Ant & Dec show, Ant & Dec’s Gameshow Marathon, was fined £1.2 million, over six occasions when the winner was selected for their suitability to be on screen and the inability of the licensee to account for almost half of the competition entries.

Soapstar Superstar was fined the same amount after one programme saw the programme makers ignore the viewers’ vote and finalise results before the lines had closed, while on a number of occasions the production team overrode the song choices voted for by viewers.

ITV was also fined £275,000 after ITV2+1 repeated programmes on 28 separate occasions without informing viewers that interactive competitions had concluded, while on three separate occasions, when repeating an interactive dating programme, ITV did not tell viewers that the show was not live and interactivity was no longer available.

Philip Graf, chairman of Ofcom’s content sanctions committee, said: “ITV programme makers totally disregarded their own published terms and conditions and Ofcom Codes. Further there was a completely inadequate compliance system in place.

“The result was that millions of paying entrants were misled into believing they could fairly interact with some of ITV’s most popular programmes.”

Ed Richards, Ofcom chief executive, added: “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.

“The industry can be in no doubt how seriously Ofcom takes the issue of audience trust. Our new licence conditions requiring broadcasters, who operate in this area, to conduct third party audits will ensure that consumers are protected.”

Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk ITV: 020 7843 8000 www.itv.com