Adjudication of the Ofcom Content Sanctions Committee - Channel Four Television Corporation in respect of its service, Channel 4;
| Published date | 20 December 2007 |
| Issuer | Office of Communications |
1
Ofcom Content Sanctions Committee
Consideration of sanction Channel Four Television Corporation (“the
against Licensee” or “Channel Four”) in respect of its
service, Channel 4;
For The conduct of viewer competitions in the
programme Deal or No Deal, as follows:
‘Staggered selection’ of competition
finalists:
Resulting in breaches of the Ofcom
Broadcasting Code (“the Code”) of:
Rule 2.11: “Competitions should be conducted
fairly, prizes should be described accurately,
and rules should be clear and appropriately
made known”; and
Rule 10.10: “Any use of premium rate numbers
must comply with the Code of Practice issued
by the Independent Committee for the
Supervision of Standards of Telephone
Information Services (ICSTIS)” (now re-named
as PhonepayPlus
1
);
Between 28 August 2006 to 13 May 2007.
Decision To impose a financial penalty (payable to HM
Paymaster General) of £500,000 and, in
addition, to require Channel Four to broadcast
a statement of Ofcom’s findings on its service
Channel 4 in a form to be determined by Ofcom
on three specified occasions.
1
ICSTIS was re-named PhonepayPlus on 15 October 2007.
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Summary
1.1 For the reasons set out in full in the Decision, under powers delegated from
the Ofcom Board to Ofcom’s Content Sanctions Committee (“the
Committee”), the Committee decided to impose a statutory sanction on
Channel Four in light of the serious nature of its failure to ensure compliance
with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code (“the Code”).
1.2 This adjudication under the Code relates to the viewer competitions in the
programme Deal or No Deal, transmitted on Channel 4 between 28 August
2006 and 13 May 2007 (“the relevant period”).
1.3 Channel 4 is the f ourth national public service channel. Deal or No Deal is a
daily light entertainment game show transmitted at 16:15 on weekdays and
16:55 on Sundays. On Saturdays, a repeat programme is shown. A premium
rate service (“PRS”) competition was transmitted during the programme.
Viewers were solicited by voice-over before each advertising break to call the
PRS number on screen or enter for free via the internet for the opportunity to
take part in the daily competition at the end of the programme.
1.4 From 28 August 2006 and throughout the relevant period, the
telecommunications service provider for the competition was iTouch UK
Limited (“iTouch”).
1.5 Press reports and media interest in the operation and conduct of viewer
competitions in spring 2007 prompted some broadcasters who were
implicated to conduct investigations into the use of PRS in their programmes
and viewer competitions.
1.6 Channel Four instructed external specialist media lawyers W iggin LLP
(“Wiggin”) to undertake a review of all of its PRS activity, including
competitions and voting with a primary focus on the opening and closing of
lines, call handling procedures, winner selection and vote counting processes.
1.7 The review concluded that a staggered method of selecting finalists
(“staggered selection”) in the Deal or No Deal competition between 28 August
2006 and 13 May 2007 was unfair. It resulted in later entrants having a lower
probability of being shortlisted as a potential winner in the competition
compared to those who had entered earlier.
1.8 Channel Four was notified in March 2007 that the form of staggered selection
used in the Deal or No Deal competition was unfair. Although it took steps to
try to minimise that unfairness in the short term whilst it sought a solution, it
knowingly continued to conduct an unfair competition for approximately seven
weeks. Channel Four stated that, although the practice of staggered selection
was unfair, it had been unclear to it at that time that it was necessarily in
breach of the PhonepayPlus Code. This was because although the
PhonepayPlus Code required that all entrants have an equal chance, this was
not necessarily subject to a strict interpretation in the industry and therefore a
‘slight’ adverse impact was believed to be acceptable, particularly if steps had
been taken to minimise that adverse impact. An initial decision to continue
had therefore been taken, which Channel Four regretted and now
acknowledged to be wrong. However, Channel Four submitted that this
decision had been taken in good faith on the basis of the external advice it
had received.
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