Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor
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The BBC has admitted that it banked £106,000 that should have gone to causes such as Children in Need and Comic Relief in the latest phone-in scandal to affect the corporation.
Viewers who contacted fundraising phone-ins but whose calls were received just after the lines had closed were still charged for the call and a BBC subsidiary kept the money.
Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, which uncovered the practice, expressed regret for what he described as “a failure in terms of the behaviour of staff and of the BBC’s own systems”. He added: “This did not help the BBC or the people we serve.”
Adding to the corporation’s embarrassment was a further revelation that it left out tens of thousands of phone-in votes in last year’s British heat of the Eurovision Song Contest, although it did not affect the result of the competition, which was won by Scooch.
One of the programme’s presenters, Sir Terry Wogan and Fearne Cotton, called mistakenly for votes before the phone lines had opened and although callers were charged, their votes were not counted. Calls received outside the voting period on the programme amounted to 38 per cent of the total.
The Eurovision heat took place on an error-strewn night for the programme, which involved viewers voting on who should represent Britain in the annual competition. At the end of the show, Sir Terry mistakenly announced the wrong winner and had to be corrected by his co-presenter.
Yesterday, Sir Michael ordered the corporation to hand over the £106,000 to the charities, plus £6,000 to cover the Eurovision mistake and added interest — resulting in a total payment of £123,000. “There may be disciplinary action. There is no room for complacency here,” Sir Michael said, and promised that the BBC would make an on-air apology to viewers.
The telephone calls were handled by a BBC subsidiary, Audiocall, part of its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. It organised fundraising phone-in competitions on programmes including Sports Personality of the Year, Strictly Come Dancing and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Calls typically cost 25p, with half the money going to charity, but in some cases viewers were charged as much as £1.50.
Keeping all the money raised from late calls occurred between October 2005 and August 2007. There is no suggestion that anybody benefited personally from keeping the money, although the practice was known only to a small number of the corporation’s employees within Audiocall and uncovered only as part of a review of all phone-ins by the business consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers.
The auditor, in its review, said that “the practice might be perceived as improper conduct” but it added that it had not had the chance to make a full investigation into why money that viewers intended to donate to charity was retained in BBC accounts. The BBC’s revelations come only a day after ITV admitted that a comedy award was wrongly presented to Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly when viewers had actually voted for Catherine Tate. ITV was fined £5.7 million by Ofcom for a string of other phone-in breaches.
“We are not talking about anything of the scale of what happened at ITV, even when you add all of the BBC’s lapses together,” Sir Michael said.
The BBC has admitted deceiving viewers by running phone-ins to programmes such as Blue Peter and Comic Relief in which callers had no chance of winning.
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At the time of the Wogan/Cotton broadcast the presenters created a big build-up to announcing the winning entry and simultaneously came out with two different names! Fearne Cotton instantly took control and insisted "It's ... " I expected to see some comment in the press at that stage. Conspiracy?
Barbara, Edinburgh,
Thompson should go. Bring back Greg Dyke.
Rob, London,
I know this story is about the BBC holding on to £106,000 of charity money, but what happens to the 50 per cent of money the corporation legitimately receives through phone-ins of this type? Why didn't the auditor get the chance to conduct a full investigation into this matter?
Des, Edinburgh,
I despise the BBC but in this case they did the right thing, just in time.
Phill, The Wirral, UK
after reading this news I wonder why tax payers pay a licence fee? it should be privatized and give shares free to all the licence payers.then they can do what ever sams they want to do and face the music .
kari , crawley, west sussex
Para 3 - 'The practice' is a noun, but you have misspelled it as the verb 'practise'. Standards in education?
C Skillen, Belfast, UK
Scooch/wrong name Eurovision debacle was last year, not this year. Silly Times.
Nicola, Somerset,
It's unbelievable that the BBC is embroiled in another scandal. The TV license should be scrapped! And American readers: the yearly TV license is compulsory for all TV owners - even if the viewer doesn't watch the BBC channels! The other channels do have commercials - & the BBC show their own ads.
Maureen, Ware, Herts. , England
As much as this is a scandal, I should like to point out, coming from the Yank side of the pond, you really, really don't want adverts on the TV. Unfortunately for us Americans, with almost no exceptions, even when we pay for TV (cable channels vs. free broadcast stations) we still suffer the ads.
Daniel, Sacramento, CA, USA
Will someone PLEASE privatise the BBC or, at the very least, break it up - the organisation is just an embarassment.
Mark, Berkhamsted,
Because of the unique way Labour TV, sorry, the BBC is funded blah blah blah
Well, you were right, no one would have guessed you defrauded children's charities.
Scrap the TV license fee, see if the BBC floats. Its unique selling point (no adverts) has long gone - too much self advertising
ws, Manchester,
Totally agree with fred from Leeds. We are paying the BBC for the right to watch ITV and both of them are ripping everyone off. Will they be issuing a statement about their disgrace? Or will it be classified as another 'crisis', much like the sub-prime FRAUD. ???
Lucy, London,
Terry Wogan was born in Ireland before it declared itself a republic and so he is entitled to a British passport which in fact he applied for not too long ago apparently for the purposes of allowing him to style himself 'Sir' when he was awarded a knighthood.
Michael Coyle, Dublin, Ireland
You'll never get me phoning in for anything, ever.
Never have, never will. It's a mug's game.
clivex, Bristol, England
Cannot believe we still are legally forced to give them money!
Fred, Leeds, West Yorkshire
Technically ,as Terry Wogan was born in the Republic of Ireland he cannot be called Sir Terry.
Pat, Hague, Netherlands
Is this the same BBC that gives us lessons about morality in Iraq?
William D H Carey, Schoten 2900, Belgium
I think this is the lowest thing anyone could ever do by taking money from a childrens charity.
Sheetal, Eton Wick ,
Am I missing the point, or are these all clear cases of Corporate fraud?
Ian Jones, Reading, UK