The BBC is to suspend all its phone-in competitions after the Corporation's Trust expressed concerns about "significant failures of control and compliance".
An editorial review revealed viewers had been misled in shows including Comic Relief and Children In Need, some of which featured fictitious winners of phone-in competitions.
Mark Thompson, the BBC director-general, said the failures within the corporation and by its suppliers, have "compromised the BBC's values of accuracy and honesty".
He's talking about charging the callers even though there was no chance for them to win:
The scale of the Richard & Judy phone-in scandal was disclosed yesterday after it emerged that millions of viewers as far back as January 2004 were ringing the show on premium rate numbers with no chance of receiving a prize.
Almost half the callers were contacting the programme after the shortlist of winners had been chosen, Icstis, the premium rate telephone regulator, claimed yesterday.
....Richard & Judy was one of a number of programmes that were unmasked this year for misleading viewers who phoned in on premium rate numbers.
....Icstis calculates that £3.8 million in revenue was made from the 5.2 million callers, half of whom called after the shortlist had been chosen. As a result Eckoh will be forced to repay about £1.5 million.
No comments:
Post a Comment