ITV fined record £5.675m over phone-ins

ITV has been fined £5.675m by Ofcom over the "abuse" of premium-rate phone lines in a host of hit shows - nearly three times the previous record sanction against a UK broadcaster. Shows including Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar have all been penalised in Ofcom's fine for misleading viewers. In addition to the record fine, Ofcom has ordered ITV to broadcast six on-air apologies about its participation TV transgressions.

ITV was criticised by Ofcom for a "completely inadequate" compliance system for its premium rate phone-ins, while programme makers were accused by the regulator of having "totally disregarded" its broadcasting code. ITV1's I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! and People's Court were also found to have breached Ofcom's broadcasting codes, but no financial sanction was imposed on these programmes.

The chairman of Ofcom's content sanctions committee, Philip Graf, said: "ITV programme makers totally disregarded their own published terms and conditions and Ofcom codes. Further, there was a completely inadequate compliance system in place. The result was that millions of paying entrants were misled into believing they could fairly interact with some of ITV's most popular programmes." Ofcom added that the unprecedented level of the fine reflects not only the seriousness of ITV's failures but also their repeated nature.

The previous highest fine imposed by Ofcom was £2m on GMTV - which is 75% owned by ITV - in September 2007 for the breakfast broadcaster's own call TV scandal. This matched the £2m that ITV broadcaster Carlton was fined by TV regulators in 1998 for deception in its cocaine trade documentary The Connection.

I revealed last week that Ofcom was considering a fine of around £6m, but ITV was seeking to have the sanction limited to £4m. The 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."

Ofcom's report reveals that the regulator has fined the offending shows and their programme-makers individual amounts. Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, made by ITV company LWT, has been fined the most - £3m - for repeat offences over four years. On various dates between January 14 2003 and October 21 2006, Ofcom's damning investigation found the programme was in breach of its codes in three competitions within the programme - 'Grab the Ads', 'Jiggy Bank' and 'Win the Ads'.

In 'Jiggy Bank' - a competition during which viewers rang in to try to ride a giant pig to win cash - 107,807 calls and £76,000 of revenue were affected. The number of calls to Win the Ads affected was a huge 3.6 million. The offences included "selecting competition finalists before the telephone lines were announced as closed" and "selecting finalists on the basis of their suitability to be on television and where they lived - contrary to the broadcaster's own terms and conditions, which explicitly stated that entrants would be chosen randomly".

Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, also made by LWT, has been fined £1.2m for offences carried out between September 17 and October 29 2005. Ofcom revealed that £2.4m worth of revenue on Gameshow had been affected and that ITV had taken this amount into account when donating £7.8m to charity earlier this year. The regulator found that on six occasions during the show's 'Prize Mountain' competition, winners were "selected based on their suitability to be on screen", rather than randomly. LWT was also unable to account for almost half of the competition entries.

In addition, ITV company Granada Television has been ordered to pay £1.2m for breaking rules over Soapstar Superstar phone-ins in January 2007. In one programme the production team ignored the viewers' vote and finalised results before the lines had closed. This resulted in the wrong participants being put forward for eviction and on a number of occasions the production team overrode the song choices voted for by viewers.

Ofcom's fine also included a sanction against ITV digital channel ITV2 +1. The service has been fined £275,000 for not telling viewers that interactive competitions had concluded on 28 separate occasions – meaning that "all [premium-rate phone-in] entries in these competitions had no chance of winning but were still charged". Also, on three occasions when repeating interactive dating programme Playdate, ITV did not point out that broadcasts were not live so people who rang in were still charged. The regulator also investigated allegations made about the 2005, 2006 and 2007 series of The X Factor, but found they did not breach its broadcasting code.

Ofcom's fine could have been much higher – estimates put the highest possible financial sanction at around £35m, based on a percentage of ITV qualifying revenues. However, the regulator said it came to its conclusion after noting that ITV had already donated the £7.8m sum to charity.

The 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. We welcome Ofcom's recognition of the 'wide ranging and timely' steps voluntarily undertaken by ITV. ITV has gone further than any other broadcaster in instigating an independent, systematic and comprehensive investigation into all allegations around premium-rate services in its programmes. We believe that Ofcom's scrutiny of the evidence we provided will reassure viewers and rebuild the public's trust in ITV. Since the publication of Deloitte's findings, ITV has totally re-engineered its editorial, compliance and training procedures to safeguard against any recurrence of such breaches of trust."

Grade went on: "We have also taken a number of disciplinary measures. Anyone working with or for ITV going forward is in no doubt of the standards expected and the consequences if they fall short. For anyone who cares about British broadcasting the Ofcom findings and the Deloitte review make for sorry reading. It is clear that these serious breaches of trust were evidence of gross editorial errors of judgement designed, mistakenly, to enhance the viewer experience. In no case is there evidence that there were any corrupt attempts to generate further revenues."

Ofcom's damning report into ITV's participation in the TV deception scandal also lambasted "omnipotent" executive producers and revealed that a senior executive had been informed of an "issue" with the voting system on Soapstar Superstar. The regulator's report also criticised ITV for not taking "significant" disciplinary action against individuals responsible for shows caught up in the scandal and for its "institutional failure" over programme compliance.

The regulator said junior members of the Soapstar Superstar production team had been "firmly sat upon" by more senior programme-makers when they tried to raise concerns about the manipulation of viewer voting. Ofcom also criticised the executive producer of Saturday Night Takeaway, accusing the unnamed individual of turning a blind eye to phone-in deception.

In the case of Soapstar Superstar, transgressions included the production team overriding the song choices voted for by viewers and closing voting lines early. "In particular, ITV's partnership director and controller of ITV interactive had been told an 'issue' had occurred in relation to the January 5 2007 episode of Soapstar Superstar, but had not probed further and questioned what exactly had occurred," Ofcom said.

ITV said that the ITV partnership director and controller of ITV interactive had "not actually been told what the issue was or, indeed, its magnitude or seriousness", but admitted that the incident should have been reported to senior management. The regulator did not name any of the individuals involved with the relevant ITV shows in its wide-ranging criticism, referring only to job titles. ITV today declined to confirm the identity of the individuals doing any of the senior production or executive jobs referred to by Ofcom.

"Ofcom was strongly of the view that Granada's and/or ITV's senior management ought to have been aware of the breaches that occurred," said the regulator in its adjudication against Soapstar Superstar, for which legal compliance is handled by ITV subsidiary Granada Television. The regulator added that that the executive and series producers of Soapstar Superstar had shown, on the nine occasions voting was manipulated, an "arrogant disdain for the votes viewers had paid to make".

Ofcom said the Soapstar Superstar producers had "deliberately and knowingly" finalised the viewer vote and "appeared to have overridden viewers' votes, despite the fact that concerns had been raised by more junior members of the production team". Junior members of the Soapstar Superstar production team had, ITV admitted, been "firmly sat upon" by the programme's producers, according to the regulator. "The producers had flouted the voting guidelines for their own purposes: either for reasons of expediency (to ensure that the vote was concluded in sufficient time) or to put forward particular contestants for the overnight eviction vote for their own reasons," the regulator said.

Ofcom added that the Soapstar Superstar producers' actions "evidenced a complete disregard for the programme's audience" which was "totally unacceptable and inexcusable". "For the programme makers to knowingly ignore the audience's votes in favour of their own decisions was inexcusable," the regulator said. "This showed their total contempt for ITV1's audience. Their actions ... were also absolutely reprehensible."

In its adjudication against Saturday Night Takeaway, for which legal compliance was carried out by ITV subsidiary LWT, Ofcom said that breaches of its broadcasting code had occurred because of "ITV's/LWT's institutionalised failure to ensure compliance". There had been "longstanding and systemic failures" in the way three of the show's competitions were run, according to the regulator.

Ofcom was also critical of the lack of disciplinary action taken against the Saturday Night Takeaway production team. "The financial penalty would have been at a substantially increased level had ITV not taken such wide-ranging action, although the committee noted that no significant disciplinary action had been taken against any ITV or LWT employee," the regulator said.

Ofcom was highly critical of the role of the executive producer on Saturday Night Takeaway, described at one point as "omnipotent", stating that was where "ultimate responsibility" for editorial compliance lay. "The executive producer was experienced and he was the most senior member of the production team," said Ofcom's sanctions committee in its ruling. "His deliberate actions (or, in some cases, awareness of deliberate actions taken by other, more junior members of the production team) resulted in breaches of the relevant codes and the audience being materially misled."

Ofcom said that all of the "power" relating to editorial decisions lay with the executive producer with "no management oversight or scrutiny or audit of his actions". ITV's compliance team is described as "reactive rather than proactive", with "no awareness of any issues that had arisen" resulting in a "wholly inadequate approach that was not fit for purpose". "Effectively, how the viewer interactive competitions were conducted was entirely within the control of the executive producer, who was 'omnipotent'," said Ofcom. "There had been no, or minimal, checks or balances on his absolute 'editorial sovereignty'."

Ofcom made identical criticisms about the culpability of the executive producers in its adjudication against Gameshow Marathon, for which LWT also handled legal compliance. Gameshow Marathon had two executive producers, one from ITV productions and one from Fremantle Media. However, editorial compliance responsibility for the series "pretty much" lay with ITV, according to the regulator. ITV said that it would now be "career threatening" for production staff to make mistakes in the area of viewer interactive competitions or voting.

Elsewhere, Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly are to return their 2005 people's choice British Comedy Award after an ITV investigation found that Catherine Tate should have won the mishandled premium rate phone vote for the prize. The presenting duo are said to be "completely appalled" by the error - which ITV said today it could not explain as it published the investigation into the botched British Comedy Awards phone-in.

City law firm Olswang's investigation, the results of which ITV has now passed to Ofcom, found that viewers were encouraged to carry on voting for the award at the December 2005 event even after it had already been presented to Ant and Dec. The main part of the awards show, which was produced for ITV by independent production company Michael Hurll Television, went out live on ITV1, but the broadcaster cut away from the event at 10.30pm to broadcast its news bulletin.

However, the awards carried on and were recorded to be broadcast "as live" once the news had finished. While the news was being broadcast, Ant and Dec were presented with the people's choice award for their Saturday Night Takeaway show, even though viewers had not been told this and were continuing to be allowed to vote. Indeed, throughout ITV's broadcast of the "as live" segment, viewers were encouraged to carry on voting even though the award had already been presented.

"This issue was not identified until the filming of the 'as live' part of the BCA 2005," the Olswang report published by ITV today said. "Steps to avoid this issue at that stage could have been taken, but were not." At the point the award was presented to Ant and Dec, the vote tally showed that Tate's self-titled BBC2 comedy show was in the lead and should have received the gong. In a statement, ITV said "insufficient evidence" was available in order "safely to conclude how or why this occurred".

However, the reason may have bizarrely been to placate Robbie Williams, who the ITV report said had agreed to attend the event and present a prize only if the recipients were Ant and Dec. "In addition to the people's choice award there were a series of awards determined by a jury," the report added. "Robbie Williams was invited to present an award. It was understood that he would be happy to present an award if the recipients were Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. In order to ensure his attendance, this assurance was given albeit at a time when the winners of all the jury awards had been decided and Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly had not been selected [for an award]."

The report continued: "As such it was an assurance that could not legitimately have been guaranteed as the only award still to be decided was the people's choice award, the winner of which was then unknown and dependant upon the public vote. While it can be concluded that the assurance was given to ensure Robbie Williams' attendance to present an award, it can not be concluded that this was the reason why the wrong winner of the people's choice award was announced."

ITV said there was "no suggestion" that either Williams or Ant and Dec were "aware of any of these issues". A spokesman for Ant and Dec confirmed that the duo would return their award to ITV, although he added they would not be making any further comment. However, sources have said the presenters are "completely appalled" at the situation. "They would never want to win an award by these methods," a source added.

ITV plc, which launched the investigation in September last year, said it did not expect any further fine from Ofcom for the British Comedy Awards incident as it was not the compliance licensee for the programme. Legal compliance for the British Comedy Awards was the responsibility of Channel Television, the independent company that owns the ITV licence for the Channel Islands. Channel TV has launched its own investigation into the affair.

Michael Hurll Television again apologised for the incident, but also hit out at ITV for releasing the Olswang report on the same day Ofcom slapped a £5.675m fine on the commercial broadcaster. "Much confusion has been caused by the timing of the publication by ITV of Olswang's findings in the same hour as Ofcom announced ITV's record fine," the production company said in a statement. "The British Comedy Awards and its producers, MHTV, are not connected in any way with today's record fine or any of the programmes sanctioned by Ofcom. Naturally we are embarrassed and deeply apologetic that, through an acknowledged oversight, a mistake resulted in a relatively small number of viewers' votes not being counted."

MHTV added it was "frustrated" that it still did not have any "understanding of how this confusion arose", and that "nothing of material significance has been added to our original internal inquiry". "We are also disappointed that Olswang has not apparently been able to elicit more clarity or raw data from [phone services provider] Eckoh, on which to base their opinions," the company said. "We await with interest the outcome of the Ofcom initiated inquiry, with which we are naturally fully cooperating, and hope that today's events do not in any way inhibit its progress." MHTV added it had already donated the "few thousand pounds" it had earned through the ineligible phone votes to charity.


Further reading: Ofcom's full ruling