The fine is the latest in a long string of recent punishments
from ICSTIS and media regulator Ofcom over fake, rigged and
misleading competitions.
ICSTIS (the Independent Committee for the Supervision of
Standards of the Telephone Information Services) found that a
viewer competition run as part of Deal Or No Deal was misleading
and did not provide every entrant with an equal chance of winning.
The competition was run by iTouch, which was fined £30,000.
In the competition viewers are shown three sealed boxes
containing three different amounts of money. They are told that
they can enter the competition to win one of the three cash
amounts. The fact that the programme is pre-recorded and the
competition run live, though, means that the cash amount to be won
is by necessity pre-determined. ICSTIS ruled the competition to be
misleading for this reason.
"At the point of calling viewers will consider that any one of
the three amounts is available to be won and will enter the
competition on this basis," said the ICSTIS ruling. "However, as
the show is pre-recorded, at the time when the invitation to call
takes place, the programme makers are already aware of which cash
prize will be won."
"Therefore, whilst viewers are entering to win any one of the
three cash prizes, in reality the winning amount has already been
selected. For these reasons, it was the opinion of the Executive
that a breach of this paragraph of the Code had occurred," it
said.
ICSTIS can only fine the service provider responsible to it for
the use of a premium rate phone line, which is why iTouch and not
Channel 4 was fined.
ICSTIS also found that the competition was not equally open to
all entrants. It said that callers near the beginning of the show
were more likely to win the competition than callers at the
end.
"The winner selection process which had been used, as detailed
by the service provider, meant that each entrant did not have the
same chance of winning, to a significant degree," said the ruling.
"A fundamental requirement for this type of competition was that
each entrant had an equal chance of being selected. This had not
been the case due to the way the winner selection process had
occurred, making the competition intrinsically unfair."
Channel 4 said that it had previously checked its presentation
of the prizes in three boxes with ICSTIS officials and had received
approval for that presentation method.
“We are surprised the promotion of prizes on the competition has
been ruled to be misleading," said a Channel 4 spokesman. "The
channel took legal advice that reassured us of its compliance with
the ICSTIS code of practice and earlier this year, before the
ICSTIS investigation began, we discussed the mechanics of the
competition with senior staff at ICSTIS who assured us that they
were comfortable with the manner and circumstances in which the
prizes were referred to."
ICSTIS said that the problems with the competition cause
moderate consumer harm and issued iTouch with a formal reprimand as
well as the fine.
The judgment follows months a large number of revelations in
recent months that the operators of competitions on television have
been cheating viewers. Revelations began when viewers of Channel
4's Richard and Judy programme were found to be being encourage
to enter a competition when they had no chance of
winning.
Channel 4 has said that it has stopped all its profit making
telephone lines except that of the coming series of Deal Or No
Deal, which will have a premium rate competition whose profits will
go to charity.
