ITV faces ANOTHER watchdog probe into contests after revealing postal entries to six prize draws had no chance of winning 13 years after phone-in scandal
- Ofcom announced yesterday it had started investigation after ITV reported itself
- Six contests for which postal votes were discarded was between 2014 and 2019
- ITV blamed ‘isolated incidences of unintentional administrative errors’ as cause
ITV is facing another watchdog probe after revealing postal entries for six prize draws had no chance of winning after a phone-in scandal.
Ofcom announced yesterday that it had started an investigation after the broadcaster handed itself over to the regulator following an internal review.
The six contests for which postal entries, which are usually sent for free instead of a £2 text, call or online submission, were eliminated from the draw was between 2014 and 2019.
In 2007 it was revealed entries from Saturday Night Takeaway viewers for the contest ‘Piggy Bank’ could only win if they lived within an hour of the production team’s location (file photo)
In a previous scandal, callers’ entries were excluded despite their payment being taken over premium phone lines for shows including Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway (file photo)
ITV pinpointed ‘isolated incidences of unintentional administrative errors’ as the cause and said the discarded entries were a ‘very small proportion’ of each competition’s total, according to The Times.
In a previous scandal, callers’ entries were excluded despite their payment being taken over premium phone lines in 2007 from ITV shows including Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway.
The public wasted £7.8million on the phone calls and ITV was forced to stop all voting via interactive TV and over text.
Ofcom announced yesterday that it had started an investigation after the broadcaster handed itself over to the regulator following an internal review (file photo)
It was revealed that entries from Saturday Night Takeaway viewers for a competition called Piggy Bank could only win if they lived within an hour of the production team’s location.
Votes for Soapstar Superstar were discarded around one fifth of the time and, in a separate incident, two competitors were eliminated despite not coming last.
Meanwhile, entries for Gameshow Marathon’s Prize Mountain made it to the winner’s selection process on the basis of whether they ‘sounded lively’ and the final draw included people from the same area.
An Ofcom spokesperson said: ‘We are investigating whether ITV breached our rules and licence requirements on viewer competitions.’
MailOnline has contacted ITV for comment.