BBC apologises for holding on to phone-in charity moneyLeigh Holmwood
The Guardian,
Saturday May 10 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/10/bbc.tvfakery
The BBC yesterday apologised for keeping £106,000 made from
premium-rate phone calls on about two dozen shows that should have
been given to charity.
In the latest scandal over television phone-ins to hit the industry,
the corporation also admitted that viewers of Making Your Mind Up, the
BBC1 show that chose last year's UK entry for the Eurovision Song
Contest, Scooch, were misled into voting before phone lines had
opened. In that case the BBC made £6,000 from ineligible calls.
The BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, said the money had been
repaid to charity, including interest totalling £123,000.
The trust has also ordered the BBC to make an onscreen apology - the
first time the corporation's governance and regulatory body has
imposed such a sanction.
Lyons said the issue involved the BBC Worldwide subsidiary Audiocall,
which provides premium-rate phone lines to many BBC shows. He added
that about two dozen shows had been affected between October 2005 and
September 2007, although he refused to name them.
New technology had since been introduced which meant the problem had
been resolved, he said.
The trust has asked the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, to look
at disciplining a "handful" of staff. Lyons made it clear that senior
staff within BBC Worldwide and the corporation did not know about the
problem and nor did staff who worked on the affected programmes. He
added that he did not know why staff at Audiocall did not report the
issue.
Lyons said: "There is no legal impropriety, but it is a failure in the
behaviour of these staff and the BBC's own systems. It was a matter of
serious misjudgment by a small number of people and a serious failing
in how the BBC controls its PRS [premium-rate phone services] and its
relationship with viewers and voters.
"These problems can't continue into the future and there are lessons
to be learned and disciplinary action may take place among staff."
These latest TV deception revelations follow the record £5.675m fine
imposed on ITV yesterday by Ofcom over the commercial broadcaster's
phone-in scandal.
In an email to staff, Thompson described the situation as a "serious
oversight". But he said there was "no evidence" of any "impropriety or
intention to defraud", adding that the £106,000 represented only 1.3%
of the approximately £8m raised for charity through BBC telephone
votes during the relevant period.
He said that while the new incidents were disappointing, they were
"historical". "We're confident that the measures we've put in place
mean they won't happen again," Thompson added. "We need to go on doing
everything possible to restore fully the public's trust in us.
"But we've made real progress on that score, while delivering some
spectacular creative successes and starting to make our vision of the
BBC's future a reality."
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