News: ITV fined £5.675m over competitions

Media regulator Ofcom has today (May 8) fined ITV a record £5,675,000 because of “misconduct” relating to phone-in competitions.

It criticised the broadcaster for “some of the most serious breaches of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code concerning the abuse of premium rate services in its programming”.

The fine related to competitions and draws run on Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (pictured) and Ant & Dec’s Gameshow Marathon as well as phone voting on Soapstar Superstar and repeated programmes on ITV2.

The regulator said: “The fine, which is by far the highest imposed by Ofcom or any of the previous regulators, reflects not only the seriousness of ITV’s failures but also their repeated nature.”

The largest fine imposed by Ofcom until now was the £2 million on GMTV, which is part-owned by GMTV, in September last year for other phone-in competitions.

Ofcom said it took into account that ITV had promised to pay out £7.8 million to compensate viewers and to charity.

For offences between January 2003 and October 2006, Ofcom fined ITV £3 million. A fine of £1.2m was levied for offences between September and October 2005 in Ant & Dec’s Gameshow Marathon. Another £1.2 million of the total related to offences on Soapstar Superstar.

Further penalties related to repeats of programmes on ITV2 and ITV1, where the broadcaster failed to inform viewers that interactive competitions had finished, or that a programme was not live, meaning that they had no chance of winning for entering but were still charged.

Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards said: “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.”

ITV executive chairman Michael Grade said: “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.”