“TV crisis of trust”: BBC is fined £400,000 over faking phone-in winners

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UK media watchdog Ofcom ordered British Broadcasting Corporation to pay a £400,000 fine for misleading their viewers by faking call-in competition winners. The creators of BBC shows that were fined aired show contests fully aware that the viewers had no chance of winning in them. In some cases, the contest winners were premeditatedly faked, in other cases technical difficulties during live broadcasts forced show producers to make up the names of the winners.

BBC took full responsibility for the breach of trust, and is not denying the charges. The corporation’s website www.bbc.com contains a plethora of posts on the issue. BBC also announced plans to take on an “unprecedented action plan” to deal with the matter by providing its stuff with a “new guidance on the running of competitions and a stricter code of conduct.” However, bbc.com also actively mentions other television stations, which have been fined by Ofcom over same fakery misconduct, to try to dilute the negative publicity that now surrounds BBC. The station is trying to present the issue as an overall “TV crisis of trust.” The Independent Television Network (ITV), a public service network and the largest competitor of BBC, has been fined in May of this year for very serious editorial misdemeanor in the timespan from 2003 to 2007. ITV was found to have made money off unfair competitions, which lead to a very hefty fine of £5.675 million. Another big UK network, the Good Morning Television (GMTV), was fined £2 million for the same misconduct as BBC and ITV in September of 2007. It was believed the phone-in viewers of GMTV lost £10 million a year. Despite having to pay a much smaller fine than ITV or GMTV, BBC has a huge international reputation to lose in case fakery accusations seriously taint the media giant.

But, is the violation of viewer trust purely a UK problem? Are Canadian TV and radio stations prone to the same kind of dishonest behaviour? The regulation body for telecoms, radio and television services in Canada is Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission. Just on July 24th, it revoked the licence of the campus instructional station CJWV-FM Winnipeg.

But no inflammatory offences, like the breach of viewer trust accusations that shook major broadcasters in UK, have been detected thus far.