Ofcom revealed that they had 23 open investigations against broadcasters, while ICSTIS had a further 15. In a statement, Ofcom's chief executive Ed Richards said:"Widespread concern about the use of premium rate telephone lines by broadcasters and editorial standards in those programmes has raised serious questions about trust between broadcasters and viewers. Ofcom has been monitoring the issue closely and has launched a number of individual investigations since the start of the year. However it is clear from the number of cases underway that a broader set of issues need to be examined as a matter of priority. This inquiry will seek to establish the root cause of the compliance issues which have emerged over recent weeks, and inform key decisions about protecting consumers." they later announced that the cases did not "meet the SFO criterion for acceptance for investigation". Between June 2007 and October 2009, Ofcom published the findings of their investigations into breaches of its
Broadcasting Code about the use of PRS. This resulted in over £11 million of fines and statutory sanctions on networks. In September 2007, ICSTIS found service provider Opera Telecom to be in breach of its code regarding its provision of competitions for GMTV. Channel 5's
BrainTeaser, and GCap's
Secret Sound, which was broadcast on 30 different radio stations. Some of the entries to the competition were fabricated by the production team, and, in a few instances, members of the production staff appeared on the programme posing as winners. On one occasion, during the broadcast of
Blue Peter, a child visiting the studio was asked by a researcher to pretend to be a competition winner, which they did. This resulted in an additional recorded breach against the BBC for failing to protect the welfare of children.
Early finalising and overriding of public votes The
2004 and
2005 National Comedy Awards both featured two pre-recorded half-hour segments inviting viewers to vote for the recipient of the People's Choice Award. In real-time, the award had already been presented on both occasions, but viewers were still asked to vote. During the 2005 awards, a decision was taken to override the public vote for the People's Choice Award. ''Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
was named the winner, whereas the show with the highest number of votes was actually The Catherine Tate Show. The reason for the switch has never been identified, though Ofcom investigated two theories. The first theory was that Robbie Williams, who presented the award, would appear on the programme only if he could present it to Ant and Dec; the second theory was that employees of ITV instructed the switch (Takeaway
was an ITV show, whereas Catherine Tate'' was broadcast on BBC One). Ofcom expressed its "[disappointment] at the lack of cooperation it received" from members of the production. Similar breaches were also recorded against the programme
Soapstar Superstar. On 5 January 2007, senior producers finalised the vote two minutes before the lines had closed, while presenter
Zoe Ball continued to invite viewers to vote. After the vote closed, the last (11th) placed contestant in the vote was eliminated. However, instead of the 9th and 10th placed contestants being put forward to the overnight vote to evict, the actual results were disregarded. The 7th and 8th placed contestants were put forward for the vote instead. Another aspect of voting for the show involved the public voting for which song they would like the contestants to sing. On at least eight occasions, the production team overrode the vote and decided for themselves which songs the contestants would sing. ITV acknowledged that junior members of staff who objected to these actions were "firmly sat upon" by senior producers. Ofcom opined that the programme-makers "showed their total contempt for ITV1’s audience" in manipulating the votes in this way, and described their behaviour as "absolutely reprehensible". Ofcom also recorded a breach against ITV relating to the programme ''I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!'' after it emerged that, on 30 November 2006, voting had closed three and a half minutes early, meaning that over 20,000 votes cast during this period were not counted. On this occasion, however, no statutory sanction was imposed.
Unfair selection of competition finalists Ofcom described in their reports several unfair methods used to select competition winners in particular programmes, overriding the "random" selection requirements. These included: •
Early selection - where competition finalists were being selected before the lines had closed, resulting in later callers having no chance of being selected •
Staggered selection - where several shortlists of competition finalists were produced before the lines had closed, resulting in later callers having a lower statistical chance of being selected •
Geographical selection - entrants being unaware that the competition was not being conducted in their area, meaning they stood no chance of winning •
Editorial selection - where winners were chosen based on their "suitability to be on screen", or where staff deliberately selected entrants who had guessed the answer incorrectly, to prolong the competition •
Denying prizes to genuine winners - in the case of
The Clare McDonnell Show, some entrants who had guessed the correct answer were refused the prize, as they had already won previous competitions on BBC 6 Music
Inclusion of competitions in pre-recorded programmes On several occasions, Ofcom sanctioned broadcasters for broadcasting competitions and other services "as live", whereas the programmes were pre-recorded, and anyone who called to use the services offered had no chance of doing so. These included five editions of
Tony Blackburn, eight editions of ''Dermot O'Leary'' and 31 different broadcasts on ITV2's timeshift service, ITV2+1, broadcast an hour later. Though a breach was recorded against ITV regarding a similar incident during a repeat of ''People's Court'', no sanction was issued. The BBC were sanctioned for repeating a falsified competition from
Blue Peter (see above) on
CBBC.
Non-inclusion of SMS entrants In the case of
Gameshow Marathon, ITV was sanctioned for its "lack of clarity" regarding whether people entering competitions via SMS had been included.
Flawed logic competitions In two of ITV2's competitions —
The Mint and
Glitterball — incorrect answers had been announced as correct. In
The Mint, the answer to a
wordsearch-style game was announced as "TUNA", despite the grid not containing the letter U. In a
Glitterball word-making game, the answer "HATCH" had been derived from the word "ENCHANTED", despite rules stating that letters could only be used once, and only one letter H was available. Though Ofcom recorded breaches, no sanctions were issued.
List of breaches recorded by Ofcom Below is a table containing a list of breaches and, where relevant, sanctions imposed by Ofcom, including the broadcaster's name and the programme it related to. == Aftermath ==