GMTV faces £2.5m fine over phone-ins

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 17-Sep-07, 09:00

LONDON - Ofcom is expected this week to hit GMTV with a fine of over £2.5m for cheating entrants to its phone-in competitions out of millions of pounds.

The fine would be the biggest imposed on a broadcaster to date and will come after a long investigation by the broadcast regulator into GMTV.

Ofcom has already fined the BBC £50,000 for faking a competition winner on 'Blue Peter' and Five £300,000 for three occasions on which it chose bogus winners of its 'Brainteaser' quiz programme.

GMTV's fine will be much higher because its misconduct, which was to mislead viewers into believing phone-in competitions were still open when winners had already been selected, lasted more than four years.

Allegations of GMTV's wrongdoing were first made in April by the BBC's 'Panorama' current affairs programme.

GMTV reacted by setting up an inquiry and ending its relationship with its premium-rate phone line service provider Opera. Managing director Paul Corley went on air to apologise to viewers and announced his resignation later in July.

GMTV, which is 75% owned by ITV and 25% by Disney, will be able to appeal against the fine.

Last Wednesday, ITV said it would stop running phone-in competitions on its ITV Play strand because call volumes had fallen to "uneconomic levels".

ITV Play was launched as a standalone channel in March 2006 but falling revenues led to it being returned in March to a late-night strand on other ITV channels.