Never missing an opportunity to attack the BBC, the Sun is fuming over the £400,000 fine imposed by Ofcom for various fixed phone-in competitions which no one had a chance of winning:
ONCE again, the BBC is fined for conning viewers. Ofcom’s ruling should shame everyone in the Beeb’s management. In a private company, heads would roll. Instantly.
If the leader writer had so much as bothered to bring themselves up to speed on what shows were fined and for what, they would have noted that Ric Blaxill, the 6Music head of programming resigned last year after it became apparent that he had been complicit in one of the deceptions that took place on Russell Brand’s show. The most high profile casualty of last year’s series of “fakery” scandals was Peter Fincham, the controller of BBC1, who resigned after the “Crowngate” hoo-hah.
It’s perhaps worth noting that both Blaxill and Fincham, having resigned from their jobs in public broadcasting were swiftly recruited by private sector broadcasters, with Blaxill going to the digital radio station Q Music, where he is programme director, and Fincham to none other than ITV, where he is director of programming.
In fact, it’s instructive to look to ITV and see what their response was to the fakery scandals which consumed them last year, for more than one reason. Not only did this private company, which the Sun claims would have instantly called for heads to roll, not sack anyone, despite Michael Grade saying that zero tolerance would be imposed, but it defended to the hilt Ant and Dec after it was revealed that they knew nothing about the underhand methods used on their Saturday Night Takeaway show on which they were executive producers.
There is of course, as almost always with the Sun, a huge conflict of interest here. BSkyB, itself around 39% owned by News Corporation, the Sun’s parent company, has a 17.9% stake in ITV. As well as being in competition with the BBC through its satellite and digital service, it is in direct conflict now also due to its stake in ITV. Even before this was the case the entirety of the Murdoch press has taken every opportunity it can to attack the BBC, but now it has an even wider commercial reason to do so.
The BBC’s reputation for honesty and integrity is now in tatters. Yet this isn’t a private firm. It’s paid for by you, through the licence. Which means no one carries the can, and the buck stops with no one.
Completely untrue, as the Ofcom report and the resignations show. In fact, you could more accurately say this about ITV. No one there has carried the can, the buck has stopped with no one, and it directly profited through the flawed phone-ins, something which the BBC did not. Not only did ITV deceive and take for granted their viewers, it also effectively stole from them. The muted reaction to the original revelation of how ITV took £7.8m from its viewers deceptively was almost entirely ignored in comparison to the BBC’s transgressions, which profited them nothing and were mostly always only gone through with to keep the show going.
Snooty intellectuals at the BBC treat viewers with contempt. That’s why they lazily faked competition winners.
If the BBC are snooty, lazy intellectuals, what does that make their counterparts at ITV and Channel 4 then, who didn’t just fake competition winners, but profited from their viewers’ failure to be able to win as advertised? I’m pretty sure that makes them fraudsters.
Rivals like GMTV faced massive fines for their errors. Yet the Beeb gets away with a tiny £400,000 fine.
Because, as Ofcom accepted, although those who phoned in on some of the programmes did lose their cash, the BBC didn’t receive any of it. Other shows indicted were Sport Relief and Comic Relief, where the money went to charity in any event. GMTV by comparison was fined £2 million because viewers spent up to £40 million on competitions they had no chance of winning. At least with GMTV two executives did resign, unlike those at Channel 4 or ITV.
It’s high time the BBC lost its divine right to YOUR cash. And was forced to fight with its competitors to survive.
It’s high time that the Sun got its facts straight, started declaring its conflict of interests, and stopped moaning when such innovations as the BBC iPlayer show their rivals’ programming up for what it is: complete and utter unmitigated crap. In a straight fight, there’s only one broadcaster who would win, and it would not be Sky.
P.S. This post makes up the first proper entry on the Sun - Tabloid Lies dedicated blog, set-up by Tim from Bloggerheads. Other contributors will be soon be revealed also.
Am I right in saying that you’ve just been promoted to a regular contributor, Septicisle? Congratulations if I am!
“It’s high time that the Sun got its facts straight, started declaring its conflict of interests, and stopped moaning when such innovations as the BBC iPlayer show their rivals’ programming up for what it is: complete and utter unmitigated crap. In a straight fight, there’s only one broadcaster who would win, and it would not be Sky.”
Very well said indeed.
You’re right, the Sun is full of shit.
Now let’s get on to the substantitive point: what should happen when TV programmes run fake competitions? To my mind — and in the eyes of the law — this is fraud, and it should be treated accordingly. Individual programme makers should be charged with fraud, and if found guilty should go to prison for a month or three. If a TV station does it often enough that a reasonable person would presume that it was the organisation’s policy to break the law, then the individuals running that organisation (whether it be ITV or the BBC) should also go to prison.
All true.
A shame that this bastion of public foolery (the sun) reaches so many readers though.
Guess it is still ‘Uncool’ to be seen in public using your brain!
And NOT dragging your knuckles on the floor.
Yay, another well-written and accurate post for me to applaud.
The tabloids are the tabloids, but I find their outright lying increasingly more shameless and distressing. The ‘Spun’ has always descended upon us from Cloud Cuckoo-land, but now the distance between there and here (cold reality) is such that something needs to be done.
There should be some way to make the Sun ‘fess up its conflict of interest - if only somebody could start a petition to force some of its spokespeople on to a special BBC bulletin to tell the truth! Or something along those lines. It masquerades as Socialist - ‘the voice of the people’, while actually being nothing but populist, with one of the biggest fat cats in Britain (who isn’t even British, GASP!) at its head. Isn’t there any way to get this BS out into the open?
I’m not saying that people would necessarily care that much, and it would provoke complete madness as newspaper owners everywhere rushed to conceal their own hypocritical dealings, so I can’t really see it happening. But seriously, in a culture as staunchly anti-intellectual as our own (Heat magazine, anyone?), if the only way forward is to fight gossip with scandal, isn’t it time to bring da shame?
The whole Max Moseley bollox has only prompted a further (unnecessary) load of confusion over what exactly newspapers do, and are supposed to do, in our society and all it shows is that we have lost the plot, because a fake Nazi sex orgy is more important than the fact that a BNP-approved David-Cameron’s-fave-think-tank-fresh prince of darkness is now BoJo’s new policy director.
Cabalmat: I mostly agree, but it’s very unclear indeed with these particular cases whether anyone was genuinely defrauded or whether anyone substantially lost out. The Comic Relief case, for example, happened in the early hours of Friday morning and was after two clearly drunk callers had given the wrong answer to a staggeringly obvious question. Presumably those responsible then faked a winner to keep the show moving on. No one really lost out, as the money from the calls was going to charity anyway.
Now, on the ITV/GMTV/Channel 4 cases, clearly people did lose out, to the cost of millions when all added together. Some of this was attempted to be paid back, but as far as I’m aware hardly anyone claimed, and the rest of the money that was allocated was paid to charity. What most definitely should have happened though is that in those cases those responsible should have either resigned or been sacked, and even potentially charged. That didn’t happen, and the Sun’s failure to tell the truth to its readers in this example is telling.
I mostly agree, but it’s very unclear indeed with these particular cases whether anyone was genuinely defrauded or whether anyone substantially lost out.
That’s clearly an important point
Now, on the ITV/GMTV/Channel 4 cases, clearly people did lose out, to the cost of millions when all added together. Some of this was attempted to be paid back, but as far as I’m aware hardly anyone claimed, and the rest of the money that was allocated was paid to charity.
Which seems fair to me. A premium rate phone call might cost about £1, so the administrative costs of recompensing everyone who lost out would be astronomical.
What most definitely should have happened though is that in those cases those responsible should have either resigned or been sacked, and even potentially charged.
I an employer fails to discipline staff who are clearly breaking the law, and the lawbreaking continues, I think that would establish the case that the employer is 9at least in part) a criminal organisation.
So why not have a “straight fight”?
Abolish the regressive TV tax and see who would win.
I genuinely don’t understand the fuss here. Calling a premium rate phone line to enter a competition is equivalent to throwing a pound coin out of the window; anyone who does so is an epic moron who thoroughly desrves everything they get.
Although I accept it would be better if BT passed on the details of all such competition entrants to secret death squads who’d kill them in their beds, I fail to see why anyone would give a flying fuck about them losing their money…
I am rather tempted to agree with John, except the bed killing feels a tad harsh. Not sure what explicit contract there is between the callers and the TV stations (when you read the T&C for things like Who Wants To Be Millionaire it looks to me like “you are screwed, we are screwing you, I can’t believe you are calling us!” in small print), but I think by convention and general understanding, throwing your money out the window is what you are doing for which you shouldn’t really have too much legal clawback rights.
john b - excellent.
So we can ditch all ludicrous “consumer protection” legislation and rely on the principle of caveat emptor .
Good.
So hang on… we’re forced to pay for the bbc on penalty of imprisonment, they then cheat money out of people, so we pay for a commitee to investigate and fine them .
What exactly is the point ?
Lets just cut out the bloodsuckers and keep our license fees .
- direct link -
sarah