The BBC has been fined a whopping 400,000 pounds by Britain's broadcasting watchdog for "very serious" breaches by "faking" competition winners and misleading viewers.
LONDON: The BBC has been fined a whopping 400,000 pounds by Britain's broadcasting watchdog for "very serious" breaches by "faking" competition winners and misleading viewers on a series of radio and flagship television programmes.
Ofcom imposed the fine, the largest it has ever handed the corporation, in relation to eight phone-in competitions on TV shows such as Comic Relief, Sport Relief and Children in Need, and radio shows, including The Jo Whiley Show on Radio 1 and Russell Brand on BBC6.
In all these cases Ofcom found that viewers were duped by production staff who made up the names of winners or even posed as contestants themselves, The Telegraph reported.
Its investigation also found that in some cases production teams encouraged listeners to enter competitions even though they had no chance of winning.
The regulator said: "Ofcom considered that these breaches of the (broadcasting) code were very serious. In each of these cases the BBC deceived its audience by faking winners of competitions and deliberately conducting competitions unfairly.
"Overall, Ofcom found that the BBC failed to have adequate management oversight of its compliance and training procedures to ensure that the audiences were not misled."
The BBC Trust, which holds the corporation to account, said it regretted that the fine of 400,000 pounds ($ 791,000) would lead to a loss of licence fee payers' money.
"Ofcom's decisions today relate to cases considered by the BBC Trust in 2007 which led to remedial action by the BBC and significant changes in the way the BBC compiles competitions and programmes," it said.
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