GCap Joins C4 In Axing Profit-Making Phone-In Comps
GCap Media has joined the list of broadcasters axing premium-rate phone-in competitions for profit, after Icstis ruled that a competition run on its One Network stations earlier this year broke the regulator’s rules.
Icstis has fined GCap £17,500 and issued a formal reprimand after ruling that the company’s ‘Secret Sounds’ competition contravened its rules.
Listeners were asked to call or text to enter the competition, which would ask randomly selected listeners to identify a sound on air.
Those who entered by text message were not required to include what they believed the answer to be, although some mistakenly did.
These entrants were then deliberately selected to appear on air to provide their wrong answers. By selecting these entrants the competition broke the Icstis code.
GCap said the breach was an isolated incident and as soon as the system error was discovered, management took swift and decisive action to tighten up procedures to prevent any similar breaches occurring in the future.
It said it now had a “robust system” in place and added in a statement: “As radio industry leaders, we have also reviewed the future role of premium rate services at our stations. Such services allow for robust management of high call volumes and while we will continue to use them, we will ensure that any charges are commensurate with the cost to the business. As such, we will not profit from any future premium rate contesting.”
Listeners who took part in the ‘Secret Sounds’ competition in January are being offered full refund by visiting www.gcapmedia.com.
The competition ran on 31 of the company’s 42 One Network stations, which include Capital 95.8 (London), BRMB (Birmingham), Red Dragon FM (South East Wales).
At the start of August, Channel 4 announced it was to cut all profit-making phone-in competitions with the exception of Deal or No Deal, where its share of future profits will go to charity from August 13 (see Channel 4 To Axe All Profit-Making Phone-In Comps).
However, Deal Or No Deal‘s phone-in provider has today been fined £30,000 by Icstis after it ruled that a competition on the programme misled viewers (see Deal Or No Deal Phone-In Operator Dealt £30k Fine).
These moves follow the resignation of the controller of enterprises at GMTV, Kate Fleming, and managing director Paul Corley (see GMTV MD To Leave Following Phone-In Scandal), after GMTV’s phone quiz service supplier, Opera Interactive Technology, failed to deliver fair competitions that had effectively cost participants more than £40 million over a four-year period (see GMTV Claims It Had No Idea Of Apparent Phone-In Problems).
The resignations came in the wake of numerous phone-in scandals (see Hanging On The Telephone) and Richard Ayre’s report into PRS services, which found “systemic failures” in the industry (see Ofcom Finds ‘Systemic Failures’ In Premium Rate Phone-In Services).
Ofcom has now adopted recommendations from the report to “send the strongest possible message” to broadcasters. Broadcasters will now have their licences amended by Ofcom to make them directly responsible for failures in participation services on TV and radio (see Ofcom To Make Broadcasters Responsible For PRS Failures).