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ITV fined record £5.7m over phone-in scams Terrestrial broadcaster ITV has been fined a record £5.7m (US$11.4m) by UK regulator Ofcom after repeatedly misleading viewers during last year's premium phone line deception scandal.  Ofcom says that the fine by far the highest imposed by Ofcom, or any of the previous UK regulators 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 in September last year. The fine on ITV was expected to be around £4m.Philip Graf, chairman of Ofcom's content sanctions committee, 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 CEO Ed Richards added: "This was a thorough set of investigations that 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." ITV had previously pledged to pay £7.8m in viewer compensation and to charity a fact that Ofcom said was taken into account when deciding the level of the fines. In breaking down the fines, Ofcom said it had imposed a financial penalty of £3m on ITV production division LWT for Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway for breach of conduct from January 14, 2003 to October 21, 2006 and has directed it to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on two occasions on ITV1. It has also charged LWT £1.2m for Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon for breach of conduct from September 17 to October 29 2005 and has directed it to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on two occasions on ITV1. ITV's Granada Television division, meanwhile, will be charged £1.2m over Soapstar Superstar for offences from January 5 to January 13 2007 and will also have to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on two occasions on ITV1. Finally, Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty on ITV2 of £275,000 for a variety of misconduct, including failing to inform viewers that interactive competitions had concluded on 28 separate occasions. In addition, a range of shows were found to be in breach of Ofcom's codes, but no sanctions were imposed. These included ITV1 shows I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! on November 30, 2006, and People's Court on March 17, 2008. Ofcom also investigated allegations made about the 2005, 2006 and 2007 series reality talent show The X Factor, but found that these programmes did not breach its codes. However, there could yet be more bad news to come for the broadcaster, as well as other UK broadcasters. Ofcom said it is conducting a number of other on-going investigations, including the British Comedy Awards (2004 and 2005) broadcast on ITV1, and a number of programmes on BBC radio and television, some of which are PRS cases. Ofcom said these investigations are "well-advanced" although ITV said today it was not involved in these. ITV executive chairman Michael Grade accepted Ofcom's fine today, saying it was "an appropriate moment to restate ITVs unreserved apology to the public for breaches that took place between 2003 and January 2007." He admitted that the regulators findings made "sorry reading" for anyone who cares about British broadcasting but pointed out that there was no suggestion of deliberate malpractice. "It is clear that these serious breaches of trust were evidence of gross editorial errors of judgement designed, mistakenly, to enhance the viewer experience," said Grade. "In no case is there evidence that there were any corrupt attempts to generate further revenues." He went on to list the numerous steps ITV has taken since the scandals first came to light at which point the broadcaster called in independent auditor Deloitte to study the extent of the problems. "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. "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," said Grade. Adam Benzine 8 May 2008 © C21 Media 2008 
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