So ITV has received a record fine from Ofcom in the aftermath of the regulator’s investigation of a series of phone-in scandals across various shows broadcast by the network, two of which are hosted by Ant and Dec. The fine amounts to £5.675 million, which, considering some of the amounts supposedly involved in the scandals, I find somewhat wanting.
You can peruse Ofcom’s findings here, and in ITV’s response, executive chairman, Michael Grade, said:
“For anyone who cares about British broadcasting the Ofcom findings and the Deloitte review make for sorry reading.”
Well, yes, it does Michael, it does. Let’s make no bones about this, and I believe I have raised this point previously: fraud has been committed here. Not some grey area, uncertain, possibly, maybe kind of fraud, but yer actual, fleece the public out of their hard earned fraud. Last time I checked, that was a criminal offence, so why haven’t the boys in blue been round and had a word? Well, I’m waiting?
Furthermore (oooh, you can tell I’m annoyed when I use words like that), why hasn’t there been one single sacking over this incident? Richard Marson gets the push from Blue Peter over the naming of a pet, so why not here? There are some positions within ITV that must be untenable at this moment in time?
To be fair, a lot of what has transpired and been uncovered in this investigation has been at the behest of Grade in an attempt to clean up his network, and that has to be applauded. And on a day like today, it would be easy to use this is an opportunity to have yet another bash at ITV. Any channel that would act in this cavalier, disrespectful and downright criminal manner towards its audience deserves to get hammered. BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, Sky, anybody. On this one, I’m channel blind.
I’m perhaps more incensed at revelations over irregularities on Soapstar Superstar and The 2005 British Comedy Awards. It seems that the producers of Soapstar Superstar ignored the public vote element of the show, choosing to put their own choices of artist up for eviction from the show. Elsewhere, despite winning the highest amount of votes for the People’s Choice Award at The 2005 British Comedy Awards, Catherine Tate ended up losing out to… wait for it… Ant and Dec. Nobody really knows what went on there, although it looks like it could be down to Robbie Williams agreeing to appear only if he could present an award to his two Geordie buddies…
This gets my dander up more than anything else as, in one handy thumbnail, it displays the absolute contempt for the audience that has sadly been creeping into the TV industry over the last few years.
The television industry is scrabbling around to keep hold of dwindling audiences - on a day like today, I’m not even sure television deserves to have an audience any more.
Leave a comment