Ofcom Fines The BBC A Record £400,000 For Latest Competition Scandal

Ofcom has fined the BBC a total of £400,000 for faking winners and misleading audiences in phone-in competitions on shows including Comic Relief and Children in Need.

It is the highest financial penalty to be imposed by Ofcom against the BBC, though falls well below the £5.675 million that Ofcom hit ITV with in May for its part in the premium rate phone-in scandal (see ITV Handed Record £5.675m Fine Over Phone-In Scandal).

Ofcom said the BBC was in breach of Rule 2.11 of its broadcasting code, relating to unfair conduct of viewer and listener competitions, adding it considered the breaches to be “very serious”.

Both television and radio programmes were among the individual fines, with the Liz Kershaw Show on BBC 6 Music receiving the highest single penalty of £115,000.

Charity television programmes, Comic Relief, Sports Relief and Children in Need were also affected, as were theJo Whiley and Russell Brand shows on BBC Radio One and BBC 6 Music.

Ofcom’s investigation revealed that in some cases “the production team had taken pre-mediated decisions to broadcast competitions and encourage listeners to enter in the full knowledge that the audience stood no chance of winning”.

However, the industry regulator also pointed out that while audiences paid for the cost of their calls to enter competitions, the “BBC did not receive any money from the entries”.

The ruling follows the BBC’s admission that it kept £106,000 made from phone-ins which was supposed to go to charity, claiming it was due to “calls made outside of the window in which votes were counted in” and technical problems (see BBC Kept Phone-In Charity Money).

At the time, Sir Michael Lyons, BBC Trust Chairman, said that it was a “serious oversight in Audiocall” but that new technology had since been introduced.

However, the recent Ofcom investigation found that “programmes faced with technical problems, made up the names of winners”.

Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk BBC: 020 8743 8000 www.bbc.co.uk