Ofcom's record fine “makes for sorry reading”, ITV executive chairman Michael Grade said today as he sought to draw a line under the affair by spelling out the new measures he has introduced to improve its compliance procedures.

The imposition of the£5,675,000 fine is, he said, “an appropriate moment to restate ITV's unreserved apology to the public for breaches that took place.”

Grade said ITV had taken more steps than any other broadcaster in re-engineering its editorial, compliance and training procedures to safeguard against any recurrence of such breaches of trust and had also taken a number of disciplinary measures.

“We welcome Ofcom's recognition of the ‘wide ranging and timely' steps voluntarily undertaken by ITV,” he said.

“ITV has gone further than any other broadcaster in instigating an independent, systematic and comprehensive investigation into all allegations around premium rate services in its programmes. We believe that Ofcom's scrutiny of the evidence we provided will reassure viewers and rebuild the public's trust in ITV.”

Since the publication of Deloitte's findings into the premium rate phone scandal in September, ITV has suspended SMS or red button interactive platform applications in time critical voting and strengthened the sign-off and approval procedures required for all PRS activities including compliance processes.

Provision of telephony services for PRS in programmes commissioned from ITV Production has also been brought in-house and ITV Interactive Operations personnel are present in production gallery/vote rooms every night of each live show whether produced by ITVP or externally.

It aims to bring the provision of telephony services for PRS in programmes commissioned from independent production companies in-house.

ITV has also appointed Andy Griffiths to the new senior role of group director of legal and regulatory compliance, who will have responsibility for a new PRS governance regime.

All production interactive staff within ITV now report into the ITV Interactive team within Consumer and the broadcaster has introduced more PRS focused training for all ITV staff involved with PRS and BT-certified training for all service provision personnel.

The broadcaster has formally request that Ofcom change the regulated compliance structure and is working with the industry to monitor improvements in the reliability of SMS and red button voting to establish if it is appropriate to restore its use in a wider range of voting in programmes.

Topics