British Regulator Rips GMTV With £2 Million Fine For Cheating The Public And Over At The BBC Heads Are Rolling Because of The Violations of the Public’s Trust

Ofcom did not mince words in its disgust with what GMTV and other broadcasters have been caught doing with fake phone-in contests that charge customers premium rates when in effect their call has very little if any chance of actually affecting final results.

Ofcom said GMTV had committed offenses that “constituted a substantial breakdown in the fundamental relationship of trust between a public service broadcaster and its viewers.” It said GMTV was “involved in the widespread and systematic deception of all those viewers who paid to enter in the belief that they had a fair chance of winning when in fact their chances of winning were diminished or non-existent.” In addition to GMTV being fined, another government regulator fined Opera Telecom that ran the GMTV competitions the maximum £250,000 ($500,000, €3.6 million) penalty allowed under the law.

GMTV had been caught out by the BBC’s Panorama news investigation program in April that said viewers had spent up to £40 million ($80 million, €57 million) over recent years entering competitions when in fact they had no hope whatsoever of winning. GMTV at the time said it would investigate and in late August Corley resigned saying that viewers had spent £35 million ($70 million, €51 million) on competitions over four years that they had absolutely no chance of winning.

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The station says it has started a viewer refund program to which 130,000 people have thus far applied (it hasn’t said how much it has paid back!). It has accepted the Ofcom judgment and “takes full responsibility for the breaches of the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.” It also has to broadcast a summary of the findings at least three times.

Large as that £2million fine is, the nagging question is why wasn’t it larger? Under Ofcom’s rules it could have fined the broadcaster up to £2.8 million ($5.6 million, €4 million) – 5% of qualifying station revenue -- but chose not to for some reason. And yet the station bilked the public, by its own admission, of £35 million pounds and those phone-ins provided a large bulk of the station’s profits -- since the station stopped the phone calls in April it has lost more than £10 million ($20 million, €14.6 million) – about its yearly profits. Was Ofcom worried about GMTV’s financial ability to pay a higher fine even given its corporate ownership? Surely the “crime” merited the highest fine possible.

The other thing ftm doesn’t understand, as we have asked before, is since all the parties concerned admit this was financial fraud on a massive scale upon the general public shouldn’t people or companies be showing up in courts of law, or are they protected because there is a government regulator?

Telephone competitions are a major source of revenue to British TV companies. In GMTV’s case, telephone competition revenues are said to have generated some £63 million ($126 million, €90 million) in revenues between 2003 and 2006 of which calls to the value of £35 million never saw the light of competitive play. For GMTV phone revenues accounted for up to 40% of annual profit.

The GMTV fraud was not isolated. Ofcom has fined Channel Five £300,000 ($600,000, €440,000) for faking the winners in its 'Brainteasers' program, and on Channel Four the 'You Say We Pay' quiz was fined £150,000 ($300,000, €220,000) because more than half of the calls, at £1 ($2, €1.47) each, were received after the shortlist of winners had already been chosen.

And although it was that BBC Panorama program that opened floodgates, the BBC itself has not escaped unscathed from violating the public’s trust. Indeed Ofcom issued its first-ever fine against the BBC in July for faking results of a telephone vote used on a children’s program, and since then the BBC has discovered several instances of producers faking the results to phone contests on other TV and radio programs, and now heads are beginning to roll.

It has now come to light that the very same Blue Peter program, the BBC’s premier children’s show, apparently faked an online contest to name a new Blue Peter cat. Viewers voted for 'cookie' but the production team apparently preferred “Socks” so guess which name won? In true BBC tradition, Socks will keep his name but the program is introducing a new kitten named, yes, you guessed it, Cookie.

But none of this a joke to the program’s editor at the time and the BBC is reported by British media to now have fired him. The BBC has uncovered fakery on some of its digital radio stations in which viewer votes were overruled – in one case there were no votes so the program said there were and came up with a fake 'winner' . All in all UK media reports say that up to 25 personnel, including some senior people, have received disciplinary notices. Before these new incidences had come to light the BBC had already uncovered six other offending programs.

According to The Times, Blue Peter has had a checkered history. In 1962 a newly introduced mongrel puppy named Petra died, but so as not to upset the children a lookalike was found and the then viewing public were well into their adult lives before news of that came out. Ten years ago the program had to explain why one of its presenters was no longer on the show with the head of children’s programming going on air to tell the kiddies the presenter had taken an 'illegal drug'. Translation: cocaine. There were also two phone-in scandals and the resulting Ofcom fine.

And ITV, the main terrestrial commercial channel, announced last week it would not air this year’s British Comedy Awards show due to have been taped in December after alleged irregularities arose over the program’s phone voting on its 2005 show. ITV says it has hired a legal firm to investigate -- the Sun newspaper alleged in July that the one category that viewers decide, their favorite show, had already been picked although viewers were still being urged to phone the premium-rate phone lines to vote.

ITV executive chairman Michael Grade says the network has zero tolerance for deliberate deceit and he commissioned Deloitte to investigate alleged irregularities across the network. The accountants are due to report next month but, according to The Guardian, ITV executives that have seen early drafts say it makes for uncomfortable reading.

The issue of 'trust' is even now entering the news arena. How many times have you watched an interview and then the camera cuts to the questioner who seems deep in thought listening to the interviewee often nodding in agreement? Those 'noddings' are usually taped after the interview and edited in later – does that violate viewer trust for what really occurred?

And then there are such practices as the questioner, after the interview is over, re-asking the question, perhaps more cohesively than originally and in a more conversational tone and that replaces the original question. Does that violate viewer trust?

News people will say, of course, this is standard news editing practice, but as the UK TV networks work on achieving a whiter-than-white image all of that is in danger of becoming part of 'zero tolerance'.

Further Complicated: Advertising, Children and Television

British Regulator Rips GMTV With £2 Million Fine For Cheating The Public And Over At The BBC Heads Are Rolling Because of The Violations of the Public’s Trust