ITV has been fined a neat £5.6 million over a string of phone in scandals. This all began, of course, with the revelation that a number of TV shows across all networks had encouraged viewers to phone in premium competition or vote lines even once a winner had been selected or voting had closed. But it turns out ITV producers were guilty of much bigger phone in crimes than just being a bit slack about telling viewers when competitions and voting were closed.
Producers of Ant & Dec's 'Saturday Night Takeaway' were guilty of picking competition winners based on where they lived or their "suitability to be on television", rather than at random, as was implied on air. Producers of 'Soapstar Superstar' chose to ignore some viewer votes that would have meant results were not as they wished.
But my personal favourite is the phone vote at the 2005 British Comedy Awards. It has transpired that producers decided to give the Peoples Choice prize that night to the aforementioned Ant & Dec, even though the lovely Catherine Tate got the most votes. Although the official report says there is "insufficient evidence" to fully explain why this happened, it is alleged that Robbie Williams, who presented the award, had said he would only present the prize to Ant & Dec. Producers, presumably originally expecting the dynamic duo to win the poll, allegedly ignored the actual viewer vote when it became clear Tate had won, so that Robbie could present the gong to his chosen c'leb mates. Ant & Dec, who are expected to now return the award, and who previously denied any knowledge of all the dodgy phone ins on the shows they themselves executive produce, are reportedly "absolutely appalled" about the award scandal.
Commenting on the fine ITV has received, which is large but someway off the maximum fine OfCom could have imposed, the boss of the media regulator, Ed Richards, told reporters: "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".