£80,000 fine over Ant and Dec prize fix

Published on Friday 2 October 2009 22:05

REGULATOR Ofcom has imposed an £80,000 fine after a prize-fixing incident at ITV1's British Comedy Awards, which wrongly named Ant and Dec as the People's Choice winners.

The fine for Channel TV, which was responsible for ensuring the show met the necessary standards, also covered appeals for viewers to continue voting, even though polling had closed as the shows, in 2004 and 2005, had already been recorded.

The incidents came to light after a number of TV phone- voting scandals, which led to a shake-up in the industry.

Ant and Dec were given their award in 2005, even though the Catherine Tate Show received the highest number of votes. The production team overrode the popular vote.

Channel TV said in a statement it had always accepted responsibility for the failures.

It said: "Such failure was not conceived out of fraud or deception, but out of error. It is not suggested that the failure was in any way deliberate.

"Channel Television apologises unreservedly."

It also said it was "profoundly dissatisfied" that Ofcom, due to a lack of statutory powers, had been unable to get to the bottom of all the issues.