BBC admits fake winners on charity appeals (staffers posed as "winning callers" on air)

The Times (U.K.) ^ | July 18, 2007 | Dan Sabbagh and Philippe Naughton

[Stoat]

BBC admits fake winners on charity appeals

 

Dan Sabbagh, Media Editor of The Times, and Philippe Naughton

 

The BBC suspended all phone-in competitions today after admitting that it had put fake winners on air during its flagship charity appeal programmes, Children In Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief.

On each occasion, the "winning caller" heard on air was a member of the production team posing as a viewer.

The World Service pop programme White Label, the TMi show on CBBC and BBC 6 Music’s Liz Kershaw Show also duped viewers in a similar way.

Mark Thompson, the corporation's Director General, tonight confirmed that some staff had been suspended from their editorial positions while each breach was investigated.

 

 

The six new cases follow the recent disclosure that Blue Peter persuaded a child to pose as a competition winner, which resulted in a £50,000 fine imposed by broadcasting watchdog Ofcom.

The revelations, which the BBC admitted after a meeting this morning with the BBC Trust, the corporation's regulator, plunges it into its greatest crisis since Mr Thompson took over from Greg Dyke in the wake of the Hutton affair.

In a statement this afternoon, Mr Thompson said: "The behaviour of a small number of production staff who have passed themselves off as viewers and listeners must stop. We must now swiftly put our house in order."

Disclosing the suspensions, he told an interview with Sky News: "We are going to asking a few colleagues to move away from their editorial positions while we find out what has happened."

He added that public trust would be eroded. "You have the right to be angry. I feel angry about this. Now we have to put our house in order," he said.

"Deception... is utterly unacceptable. The reason I take this issue seriously, the reason I take this to be such an important matter today, is precisely because this goes to the heart of the trust that the people have in the BBC and its programming."

He indicated that a vigorous training and information campaign was likely to be launched within the company to emphasise the importance of accuracy and trust, which the BBC Trust would scrutinise on a regular basis.

"We have tried to be open and honest with the [BBC Trust] panel today about what has happened and how we are going to put it right," he said.

He also indicated that the corporation would also look at ways to reimburse those who had paid money to enter phone-ins which were faked, saying: "If there is restitution we can make to people who have taken part in particular competitions, we will do that."

However, in what appeared to be a comment aimed at other media companies, he said the television industry across the board was suffering from the same problems as the BBC.

"It's not just the BBC. The industry has found out about some pretty serious vulnerabilities that we did not know we had," he added.

Mr Thompson spent the morning giving evidence to the BBC Trust in which he tried to explain why so many problems have only just come to light. After the meeting, the Trust released a statement describing the breaches as "utterly unacceptable", and adding that there was "deeply disappointing evidence of insufficient understanding amongst certain staff of the standards of accuracy and honesty expected".

Expert View

The variety of sleights of hand by the Corporation that has been uncovered in the past seven days is what hurts it

 

Andrew Billen

 

 

It also emerged today that Sir Michael Lyons, the BBC chairman, would also write to the Queen to apologise on behalf of the Corporation's regulator for the misleading editing of a clip promoting a forthcoming fly-on-the-wall documentary, which wrongly showed the Queen storming out of a photo shoot. The BBC later admitted the clip was inserted in the wrong place and should actually have shown her walking in.

The fact that the scandal involves Children in Need will be of particular concern to Mr Thompson, as it is the BBC’s only official charity and dates as far back as 1927. Last year, fuelled by a star-studded broadcast, its annual appeal raised £30.1 million.

The problems surrounding Children in Need and Comic Relief occurred in November 2005 and March 2007 respectively, it today emerged.

Four other "editorial breaches" were also cited, including the July 2006 Sports Relief appeal, the children's programme TMi on BBC Two in September 2006, the Liz Kershaw Show on BBC 6 Music in 2006 and White Label, a BBC World Service programme broadcast up to April 2006.

Today Ofcom, the communications regulator, warned that the BBC and its rivals were guilty of "systemic failure" in the way premium rate phone services were being operated. In a highly critical report, the regulator said that "some broadcasters appeared to be in denial about their responsibilities to ensure programmes delivered on the transactions they offered to viewers". Last week's £50,000 fine by Ofcom to the BBC for faking the Blue Peter phone-in was the first ever to be issued to the corporation.

[Stoat]

Commentary Et tu, Pudsey - Times Online

Commentary: Et tu, Pudsey?

 

Andrew Billen, TV Critic of The Times

 

Et tu, Pudsey? Today’s revelations from the BBC’s own internal inquiry into the editorial standards of its programme makers could hardly be more damaging. For afternoon quiz shows and Saturday morning cooking competitions casually to cheat their audiences is one thing, but for Children in Need, that annual good deed in the naughty world of television, to have misled its own donors – that’s the us who last year raised more than £30 million for its charities – will shock even its most cynical critics.

The BBC’s executive says it trawled a million hours of its output since January 2005. It issued an “amnesty” to producers who wanted to fess up. In that context for the trawl to have netted dup only half a dozen scams would have been reassuring were it not for context: last week’s unprecedented Ofcom fine for Blue Peter; the equally unprecedented apology offered to the Queen for making a soap opera out of a moment of royal irritation; and Ofcom’s complaint, only this morning, of a “systemic failure” in the way TV runs premium rate services.

In the BBC’s defence, there is no question, as in the case of the commercial malefactors, that it has cheated out of greed. That a recorded Liz Kershaw programme on BBC 6 Music bothered to fake a live phone-in - the phonees were her producers and pals – is as much an example of naivety as cupidity. But the variety of sleights of hand by the Corporation that has been uncovered in the past seven days is what hurts it. A press preview, a children’s programme, the World Service, a Newsnight report, and now Children in Need, Comic Relief, Sports Relief – these examples suggest that a maverick culture, already rampant in the independent sector, has spread to many corners of the BBC. Young people, barely trained and under-supervised, have made a mockery of the standards that are supposed to be uniquely held by the nation’s prime public service broadcaster. It looks very much as if BBC has started treating licence-payers as punters,

I suggested this week in my Times television column that the next time the BBC was found cheating its Director-General, Mark Thompson, should be filmed apologising on his knees to the Queen (and not just when she is its victim). The good news is that the new BBC Trust appears to be an even frostier patron than Her Majesty. Far less on-side than the old Board of Governors tended to be, today the Trust is angry and demanded action. Thompson, to his credit, is acting. He may, by banning all phone competitions across the BBC, even be over-reacting. But he knows that until trust is restored, the public face of the BBC will remain as battered as Pudsey’s.

[Stoat]

Related thread from July 14, 2007

BBC in row over doctored TV footage with Gordon Brown (....made him look like a thug)

[PeterFinn]

And what is the $64,000 question?

[samtheman]

Fake... but ACCURATE!

[vox humana]

When did Dan Rather go to work for the BBC?

[reagan_fanatic]

The six new cases follow the recent disclosure that Blue Peter persuaded a child to pose as a competition winner

Blue Peter? Sounds like a medical condition.

[AnnaZ]

They also doctored footage of the Queen, may have befriended Hamas (as in actually getting caught doing it) in that recent hostage situation, and had that report released detailing their bias.

The Beeb is so busted.

[PAR35]

They fake news reports, why shouldn’t they rig the call in games? It isn’t like they have any reputation for integrity any more.

[ozzymandus]

Funny stuff. The once-respected Beeb is really self-destructing.

[DejaJude]

I hope they do an audit on these charities. Who knows where the money actually went?

[Proud_USA_Republican]

Doesn’t matter. As long as its publically funded, it can do whatever it wants and spew whatever liberal bias it wants. Its reputation or hiring standards is the last thing they have to be concerned with.

[Stoat]

And what is the $64,000 question?

"How do you insure honor, integrity and forthrightness in an industry populated almost entirely by hard-Left Socialists?"

This question will most likely be addressed after the similar "How do I find the pot of Leprechaun gold at the end of the rainbow?" question.

[Caipirabob]

BBC - All the news we can invent

British standards are getting almost as bad as American alphabet networks.

[Stoat]

When did Dan Rather go to work for the BBC?

Probably sometime in the 1960's.....the same time it became overwhelmingly apparent to most thoughtful people that the Left had a stranglehold on the media in the USA as well.

[Stoat]

They also doctored footage of the Queen, may have befriended Hamas (as in actually getting caught doing it) in that recent hostage situation, and had that report released detailing their bias.

As well as their intentionally doctoring TV footage in order to make PM Brown look bad

BBC in row over doctored TV footage with Gordon Brown (....made him look like a thug)

The Beeb is so busted.

But can it be changed?  Our British Friends deserve far better than this (as do we over on this side of the pond) but when the entire industry is infested with extreme, passionate Leftists, how do you bring in a new crew?

[AnnaZ]

"But can it be changed? Our British Friends deserve far better than this (as do we over on this side of the pond) but when the entire industry is infested with extreme, passionate Leftists, how do you bring in a new crew?"

If the Brits deserve better, they'll have to demand better. After all, they pay for the crap the Beeb spews. It's a tax.

"Using a television without an appropriate licence is a criminal offence. Every day we catch an average of 1,200 people using a TV without a licence. There is no valid excuse for using a television and not having a TV Licence, but some people still try - sometimes with the most ridiculous stories ever heard. Our detection equipment will track down your TV. The fact that our enquiry officers are now so well equipped with the latest technology means that there is virtually no way to avoid detection."
-- from the official website of the British Television Licensing Authority, May 2003

_______________________________________________________

In the United Kingdom, citizens must pay a licence if they own a television set. That's right, a TV tax. For Americans, the whole idea of an annual tax to own a television borders on the absurd. However, in the UK, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a government agency that has the power to tax and enforce laws. In order to obtain funding, the BBC requires that anyone using its services must pay for them. So, if you own a TV set and live in the UK, you could conceivably turn on the BBC broadcasts, so therefore you better pay.

[50sDad]

You know, these guys slant the news sixteen ways to Sunday, but the thing that has got people acting nuts is that they lied about a children's program. Isn't that sad?

[AnnaZ]

LOL. You're right. But, hey... whatever it takes. (This just goes to show that they'll lie about EVERYTHING.)