Proximity fired from BBC TV Licensing contract

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 15-Dec-08, 09:25

LONDON - Proximity London has been fired from the direct marketing contract for TV Licensing after the wrong statistics for the number of fee evaders caught were used in millions of warning letters to the public.

The Sunday Telegraph yesterday claimed the BBC has admitted that the wrong statistics were used for almost two years, from January 2006 to November 2008.

Today TV Licensing told Brand Republic: "From Jan 06 - Dec 08, 2m letters out of a total of 184m contained errors in detailing the numbers of evaders caught in various localities. There were a further proportion of letters where the mistakes were much smaller but every letter from TV Licensing should be accurate and this is not acceptable."

The paper started an investigation after a viewer complained that he had received two similar letters from TV Licensing on the same date. One of the letters claimed that the number of licence fee evaders caught in the previous month was 33,781; in the other letter the number was 69,838.

It was unclear from the paper's report whether on balance the numbers were over- or understated.

Zarin Patel, the BBC's chief financial officer, apologised for the use of the incorrect data and said the BBC would retender the contract.

"After an urgent review by the BBC, we have taken comprehensive action. The use of these statistics has been stopped and we have informed Proximity London that the contract for TV Licensing mailings will be retendered."

Proximity won the contract in 2002 in a collective pitch with sister Omnicom-owned agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, picking up the advertising work. It has won a number of awards for its work.

Proximity issued the following statement: "We apologise for the unacceptable data inaccuracies which occurred due to human error in the regional evader data quoted in some TV Licensing mailings.

"We have conducted a full investigation in co-operation with the BBC and steps have already been taken to eliminate the problem. Those responsible for the data errors have left Proximity or face disciplinary action."

The error adds more fuel to the increasingly heated debate about the future of the licence fee and the acceptability of the methods used to enforce its collection.

The BBC Trust recently launched a public consultation to hear people's views on the tactics used to persuade people to pay their TV licence.

Newspaper columnist and former Sunday Telegraph editor Charles Moore recently called for a national revolt against the licence fee to force the broadcaster into dropping its £18m star Jonathan Ross following his involvement in poor taste prank calls to the actor Andrew Sachs.

A Facebook group, '10 Million for No TV Licence', has grown to 223,347 members since its creation on August 22.