Use of Premium Rate Interactive Services in Itv Programming
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USE OF PREMIUM RATE INTERACTIVE SERVICES IN ITV PROGRAMMING FINDINGS OF DELOITTE REVIEW AND ITV INVESTIGATION 18 OCTOBER 2007 ITV plc 200 Gray’s Inn Road London WC1X 8HF INTRODUCTION 1. In March 2007, ITV appointed Deloitte & Touche LLP (“Deloitte”) to carry out a comprehensive review of the use of premium rate interactive services (“PRS”) in programming on all ITV channels. This work has been conducted in three phases: • in Phase 1, Deloitte reviewed procedures in relation to PRS in specific programmes which were being broadcast or about to be broadcast at the date of the announcement in order to strengthen procedures as necessary; • in Phase 2, Deloitte helped to identify processes and controls that could be put in place to reduce the risk of failures arising in the future; and • in Phase 3, Deloitte undertook an investigation to establish the nature and scale of any incidents relating to the provision of PRS which have occurred in ITV programmes over the last two years from 1 April 2005 to 31 March 2007 (the “Period”). We believe this to be the most comprehensive review carried out into the use of PRS by any UK broadcaster. 2. Over the last seven months, partners and teams of the Forensic and Enterprise Risk Services divisions within Deloitte have been given access to all relevant aspects of PRS operations within ITV plc, including the work and operations of ITV Productions, ITV Consumer, ITV Compliance and ITV Network. In addition, Deloitte has had access to third party telephony suppliers, independent programme producers and third party providers of compliance services. Deloitte has confirmed that it has received full cooperation throughout this process. 3. In the review, Deloitte has considered information relating to more than 60 ITV series broadcast during the Period. In doing so, Deloitte and ITV have contacted all relevant internal and external suppliers of programming and suppliers of telephony services. Following this wide-ranging exercise, Deloitte carried out interviews with more than 40 individuals and requested that they raise any issues of which they may be aware. 4. In addition to the work carried out by Deloitte, Deloitte and ITV together identified further issues where it was appropriate for ITV to investigate and 2 Deloitte assisted in planning ITV’s conduct of that work. The review did not, and this document does not, encompass any PRS matters upon which ITV is liaising with its regulator, Ofcom, in the normal course of business. 5. In the review, Deloitte has identified some serious or concerning issues in a limited number of ITV programmes during the Period. This document sets out all such issues, with the exception of an issue which has arisen in respect of the British Comedy Awards 2005 which, as we announced on 21 September 2007, is the subject of an investigation by media law firm, Olswang. 6. In general terms, the Deloitte review identified three areas of failure in the way in which ITV operated PRS: • programme producers, staff and supporting companies have not always recognised or had a respect for the impact of their actions (often driven by editorial decisions) on the integrity of the interactive event and its participants who are paying to enter a competition or to vote; • a lack of agreed and consistently applied processes, controls and ways of working between the many parties that are often involved in the end to end process; and • supporting technology, which is in the most part supplied by third party suppliers, and the environment in which it is used, have lacked the reliability and resilience consistently to deliver the required level of services and to prevent errors arising. 7. In summary, specific serious or concerning issues have been identified in three programmes. In most cases, the issues arose due to one of, or a combination of, the following factors: • editorial discretion being applied by the relevant production team in the process of selection of a competition winner or result of a viewer vote. Whilst this appears to have been done with the aim of producing the most entertaining programmes possible, clearly the exercise of editorial discretion in this way is fundamentally incompatible with fair conduct of viewer competitions or voting; • lack of proper consideration being given, in pre-production planning of individual programmes, to ensuring fairness in the use of PRS; 3 • late receipt of a minority of competition entrants or votes from specific platforms, with the result that some entries or votes from that platform were not entered into the relevant competition or vote; and • failure to blank out PRS numbers on some programming in a time-shifted service when the relevant competition had already been concluded but a caller would still be charged. Details of each specific issue are set out in the following section. In addition, technical platform and broadcast operational issues have been identified on certain dates. 8. ITV has taken specialist legal advice in respect of each of the specific issues set out in this document and is advised that the evidence does not support any allegation of criminal behaviour. ITV has identified and will take appropriate action in relation to each aspect of the findings of the review. 4 SPECIFIC FINDINGS Soapstar Superstar Background ITV Productions produced this series in January 2007 – nine shows on consecutive nights in which soap stars performed different songs each night for celebrity judges. There were three interactive elements: • a main vote during the broadcast in which viewers were asked to vote for the soap star they would most like to be included in the show on the following night. On the basis of the results of this vote, the two soap stars with the fewest votes were included in an overnight eviction vote. This was varied for the first episode with the individual with the lowest vote being eliminated immediately and a further two soap stars being included in the overnight vote; • a follow-on vote in which the viewers voted for the song that they would like their preferred soap star to sing from a choice of two; and • an overnight eviction vote to select which of the two soap stars included in the overnight vote should be evicted from the programme. Issues 1. At the end of the first episode, action taken by the production team resulted in the contestants who had been in 7th and 8th place in the main vote being wrongly put forward for the overnight eviction vote (the contestants who should have been put forward for the overnight eviction vote were those in 9th and 10th place). This resulted in a contestant being voted off unfairly at the start of the second episode. 2. On a number of occasions (estimated at eight out of 44), the production team over-rode the song choices voted for by viewers. Their decisions appear to have been based on sustaining a suitably wide musical balance within shows, protecting the voices and/or health of participants later in the series or giving participants songs they could sing best. 5 Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway Background This Saturday night variety show is produced by ITV Productions and successive series have been refreshed with the introduction of new elements. The show involves a number of different elements, including playing practical jokes on celebrities, interviews and viewer, studio audience and celebrity competitions. The main interactive elements of the 2006 series were as follows: • “Jiggy Bank”, in which a participant rode a giant model pig to dislodge as much as possible of the cash inside. Viewers entered a text competition to ride the pig in the following week’s episode by sending a correct SMS text answer to a question; • ‘Grab the Ads’, in which viewers answered a multiple choice question shown on screen. The winner of the competition was connected to the studio and had the opportunity to play a game with one of the guest celebrities to win the items advertised during advertising breaks in a programme from the preceding week; and • ‘Win the Ads’, which was a telephone and text competition. Viewers were given the opportunity to win a place in the audience for the following episode. A member of the audience was then selected to play a game in the studio in which they had an opportunity to win every item advertised during advertising breaks in a selected programme from the preceding week. Issues with the “Jiggy Bank” competition 1. A list of locations which the pig would visit was drawn up in advance of the series. On a weekly basis a shortlist was drawn up by the production team of 20 to 30 entrants who lived within an hour of that week’s listed location. Entrants from places not near a location on the pig’s schedule, or those from areas already visited earlier in the series, had no chance of winning. This was not made clear to entrants. 6 2. The production team then routinely used editorial judgement in the final selection of each week’s winner. Researchers would telephone those on the shortlist of 20 to 30 and, as well as checking health and fitness, they would also assess the individual’s likely reaction on camera. From those assessments a final shortlist of five would be drawn up. A researcher then visited these individuals and selected the eventual winner to ride the pig. This practice was contrary to the terms and conditions of the competition, which stated that a random shortlist of potential winners would be selected from the correct and valid entries and that this shortlist would be contacted to ensure that they met the health and safety criteria.