Towards the end of this summer's Big Brother the broadcaster
offered viewers the chance to vote back into the house competitors
who had already been voted off the programme.
ICSTIS received 2,635 complaints from members of the public when
the change to the programme was announced. Voters complained that
they had spent money voting housemates out of the show only to see
them put back in, making their vote a waste of money.
"Given that the publicly-available terms and conditions on the
Big Brother website stated that: “Once a housemate leaves
they forfeit any claim to the prize money”, ICSTIS concluded that
the editorial change had indeed caused people to feel misled," said
the ICSTIS report on its investigation into the matter.
"Channel 4 acknowledged that this had been an oversight and
ICSTIS accepted that Channel 4 had not intended to mislead its
viewers. On the basis that the terms and conditions had not been
appropriately amended, ICSTIS found that its Code of Practice had
been breached."
ICSTIS chose not to impose a fine on the companies involved
because the cost of the investigation itself, which the companies
have to bear, was already significant, it said. "ICSTIS decided
that it would not be appropriate to order redress for complainants
because the 'misleading' element of the service had not materially
changed the outcome of the programme," it said.
The regulator of premium-rate phone services can only fine
companies which are registered with it, the service providers hired
by other companies to operate contests and other services. Any fine
would actually have been levied on iTouch and Minick, who provided
the systems for, respectively, the premium landline and text
message voting.
An ICSTIS spokesman told OUT-LAW that Channel 4 had co-operated
with the investigation and had told ICSTIS that it would cover any
costs and financial penalties associated with it.
"In reaching its decision, ICSTIS accepted that Big Brother was
an editorially-inventive show, and that the programme’s
much-publicised statement that 'Big Brother reserves the right to
change the rules at any time' clearly indicated to viewers that
they should expect twists and turns in how the show developed,"
said the ICSTIS ruling.
"However, the unprecedented number of complaints for this type
of service, combined with the undoubted strength of feeling shown
by the complainants, clearly indicated that voters genuinely felt
that they had been misled over this twist," it said.
