The fines relate to four television programmes and four radio
shows, with the Liz Kershaw radio show on 6 Music receiving the
highest fine of £115,000.
Three of the four fined television programmes which were fined
for running unfair competitions were broadcast in aid of charity.
They were Comic Relief, Sport Relief and Children in Need in 2007,
2006 and 2005 respectively.
Ofcom said that the BBC had deceived viewers and listeners about
competitions. The programmes had fabricated competition winners
either to cover up technical problems or to make pre-recorded
programmes appear to be live.
"In some cases, the production team had taken pre-meditated
decisions to broadcast competitions and encourage listeners to
enter in the full knowledge that the audience stood no chance of
winning. In other cases, programmes faced with technical problems,
made up the names of winners," said an Ofcom statement.
"Overall, Ofcom found that the BBC failed to have adequate
management oversight of its compliance and training procedures to
ensure that the audience was not misled," it said.
Last year a wave of competition and phone-in scandals swept the
UK television industry. ITV has been fined £5.67 million, Channel 4
£1.5m and Carlton and GMTV £2m each over competitions which misled
viewers. UK broadcasters have been fined over £11m over the
scandals.
Unlike some of the commercial broadcasters behind other
competitions, the BBC had not earned any profit on the competitions
in question.
The biggest BBC fine was for the Liz Kershaw radio show. Ofcom
found that on pre-recorded editions of the show which were designed
to give the impression of being live, BBC employees pretended to be
quiz entrants, and some of the prizes were completely made up by
production team members.
Between July 2005 and January 2007 it found that this had
happened up to 17 times. "The BBC deceived its audience in this way
on up to 17 occasions, which constituted a very significant
breakdown in the trust between the BBC and its audience," said the
Ofcom ruling. "The BBC unequivocally accepted that these breaches
of the Code (and its own fundamental principle of straight dealing
with its audience) were “absolutely unacceptable”."
"Over 1,000 SMS entries were made to the affected competitions
by listeners, in the belief that they would stand a fair and equal
chance of winning," it said. "In fact, because ‘winners’ were faked
by the production team and the programmes were pre-recorded, those
listeners who entered the affected competitions stood no chance of
winning."
"This is by far the most serious case in relation to the BBC
that Ofcom has considered to date… Despite the fact that this
occurred on numerous occasions over a long period, BBC senior
management were unaware of the repeated deception of listeners
until it was revealed during the BBC’s investigations into PRS
[premium rate services] and audience deception during 2007," said
the ruling.
The full list of television fines is: Comic Relief, BBC1
£45,000; Sport Relief, BBC1 on 15 July 2006 £45,000; Children in
Need, BBC1 (Scotland) on 18 November 2005 £35,000; TMi, BBC2 and
CBBC on 16 September 2006 £50,000.
The full list of radio fines is: Liz Kershaw Show, BBC 6 Music
between 25 July 2005 -6 January 2007 £115,000; The Jo Whiley Show,
BBC Radio 1 between 20 April - 12 May 2006 £75,000; Russell Brand,
BBC 6 Music on 9 April 2006 £17,500; The Clare McDonnell Show, BBC
6 Music from September 2006 £17,500.
"We have taken these issues extremely seriously from the outset,
apologising to our audiences and putting in place an unprecedented
action plan to tackle the issues raised," a BBC statement said.
"This includes a comprehensive programme of training for over
19,000 staff, rigorous new technical protections, new guidance to
programme-makers on the running of competitions and a strict new
code of conduct," it said.
Every UK terrestrial broadcaster has been hit with a competition
fine. ITV was hit with fines over some of its biggest shows,
including Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Soapstar
Superstar, while Channel 4's Richard and Judy show was the subject
of fines. This Morning and even Blue Peter have also been
fined.
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