C4 faces £2m bill over phone-ins
Channel 4 is facing a £2.2m payout after axeing all profit-making phone-in competitions following an inquiry into how the contests are run.
The announcement came after the channel admitted problems with the Richard and Judy competition You Say We Pay dating back to 2004.
The broadcaster could now be forced to pay compensation to viewers after it admitted the problem has been going on for three years.
The decision will affect some of the channel's most popular programmes, including The Paul O'Grady Show, which will come back in September without a premium-rate competition.
In a statement yesterday, a spokesman said an internal report had also raised concerns about the contest in quiz show Deal Or No Deal, which is presented by Noel Edmonds.
Early entrants had a greater chance of being shortlisted than later entrants, it found. Under the new policy, the Deal Or No Deal contest will stay, but any profits that will be donated to charity.
Big Brother will also continue to use phone voting, but callers will be charged only enough to cover the broadcaster's costs.
When the problem was first brought to light, Channel 4 offered to refund viewers attempting to play You Say We Pay between June 2006 to February 2007, claiming there was no evidence to suggest the problem went back as far as 2004.
But yesterday, Channel 4 admitted that 2.9m calls made to the competition had no chance of winning, and £2.2m had been generated from 'improperly entered calls' between September 2004 and February 2007. Eckoh UK Ltd, the company which ran the Richard and Judy quiz, was fined £150,000 last month by premium-rate phone services regulator Icstsis.
Last year, there were more than 30 premium-rate telephone competitions in and around programmes on Channel 4 and its sister channels.
The broadcaster's forecasted profit from these competitions for 2007 is about £3m.
Anne Bulford, Channel 4's group finance director, who has overseen the investigation, said public trust in these competitions had been 'severely undermined'.
The broadcaster had scrapped the phone-ins because it did not want to ruin its relationship with viewers, she added.
But she claimed there was 'no evidence' that anyone at Channel 4 had any knowledge or involvement in the improper handling of calls, and its reliance on the operator had been 'misplaced'.
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