So Channel 3 breakfast broadcaster GMTV has now been fined a record £2 million for what Ofcom says “could not… be described as anything other than gross negligence”.
Ofcom uncovered four different types of misconduct relating to GMTV’s premium rate phone lines, which were managed by Opera Telecom:
From August 2003 to May 2005, competition lines would remain open until midnight, with twenty finalists selected, one of whom would be chosen on air the following day. However, Opera staff were regularly selecting the finalists between 9pm and 11pm, ensuring that anybody that paid to enter after the draw time, but before the lines closed, had no chance of ever winning.
From May 2005 to August 2006, the competitions changed so that the lines closed at 9am. Twenty finalists would be selected, out of which one winner would selected ‘out of the hat’. However, GMTV and Opera agreed that 15 of the finalists would be selected at 8:30am, with a final five being selected from calls placed between 8:30am and 9am. This meant the chance of winning was considerably reduced for anyone entering the competition after 8:30am.
From May 2005 to August 2006 (i.e., at the same time as the ‘15/5’ rule agreed between GMTV and Opera above), Opera were sending over the list of the final five finalists before the lines closed at 9am, ensuring that some entrants had no chance of winning at all.
From June 2005 to February 2007, Opera workers were regularly selecting winners before they ended their shift at 8am. Opera’s GMTV account manager would then ‘top up’ the list of finalists with randomly selected names before sending the list to GMTV.
Ofcom pointed to GMTV’s continued lack of any sort of checks to ensure that its premium rate competitions complied with the relevant industry codes, the ITC Programme Code and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code (which replaced it in July 2005). Apparently, despite gaining revenues of £63.6 million (of which £49.2m was profit) and forming 35-40% of the company’s annual profit, there was no money available to pay for an audit of Opera Telecom’s processes and procedures.
The key quote from Ofcom:
Over a period of nearly four years, GMTV made profits running into millions of pounds from its competitions, but had no adequate oversight of this operation. Given the fundamental role that competitions played in its programming and the clear significance of the resulting revenue to its profitability, GMTV’s disregard for the need to operate any reasonable compliance procedure, verification, oversight or management of the arrangements for the conduct of these competitions over such a long period of time could not, in the Committee’s view, be described as anything other than gross negligence. This resulted in the widespread and systematic deception of millions of viewers who paid to enter the competitions in the belief that they had a fair chance of winning when in fact their chances were diminished or non-existent.
Given the breathtaking lack of care taken by GMTV and the huge sums of money involved, in many ways the £2m fine seems like it’s far too small. Yet Ofcom only has the power to impose a fine of up to 5% of ‘qualifying revenue’. The broadcaster has already put in place some compensation systems — including full refunds, and additional prize draws designed to carry the same odds and prize levels as the original competitions.
GMTV estimates that this compensation could cost the company upwards of £5.5 million. While that seems a lot, combined with the £2m fine, compared to the millions the company has made through its quizzes it’s a drop in the ocean.
Absolute Madness! Ofcom should have more powers, and being the main regulator should enable 'concrete laws' against this kind of misconduct.
On a side note, someone is going to be for the high jump at opera and GMTV one thinks...
2m is far too small a fine. FACT: a serious CRIME has been commited here, with many people defrauded out of money. So why is no-onew going to jail?