BBC and ITV pay price for phone-in deception

Posted by Colin Crummy on 9 May 2008 at 15:36
Tags: Broadcast, Television

The BBC has admitted it kept £106,000 from premium rate phone calls on unnamed shows that should have been given to charity, MediaGuardian reports.

The BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons said the money would be paid to the charities and the corporation would make an on-air apology. The problem involved BBC Worldwide subsidary Audiocall, which supplies premium rate phone-calls to many BBC shows but no senior staff at BBC Worldwide, the corporation or working on the shows were implicated in the deception, Lyons said.

Yesterday, broadcasting regulator Ofcom fined ITV a record £5.7m “for seriously and repeatedly misleading its audience” on 86 separate occasions over four years. Viewers wasted £7.8m on worthless premium rate calls to shows like Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.

 

Tags: Broadcast, Television