How to defraud millions and get away with it.
Ofcom have fined ITV £5.675m for their scandalous abuse of premium-rate phonelines to some of their most popular programmes. Last year, when it was reported that ITV had in all conned those who had rang in out of £7.8 million, the same newspapers which had gone crazy at the BBC over their own fakery scandals, almost all of which were with the intention of keeping the programme going rather than deliberately misleading the public for fraudulent purposes almost entirely ignored the story. The Mirror was the only one to lead with it; the Mail instead ran with "BBC TO SCREEN MORE REPEATS", the schedule apparently being more of an outrage than ITV wilfully lying and stealing from its viewers.
It'll be instructive to note if the pattern is repeated tomorrow, especially seeing that the publishing of Ofcom's ruling has exposed another even more serious deception: the public vote at the 2005 comedy awards for the people's choice award being completely ignored, with the gong going to err, ITV's own Ant and Dec rather than the real winner Catherine Tate because Robbie Williams would apparently only present it if it went to them. The real issue here though is obvious: if the BBC so much as puts a foot wrong, it gets savaged by those diametrically opposed to almost everything it does, even if no one really lost out, the corporation apologies profusely, as it did over the ridiculous "Crowngate" affair which wasn't even its own fault and if those ultimately responsible lose their jobs, as Peter Fincham did. How different to ITV, where no one has been sacked and no one has resigned, and everyone simply just wants to move on, including apparently the newspapers so disturbed by the BBC's offences against the general public. As Ian Hislop once said, if this is justice, I'm a banana.
It'll be instructive to note if the pattern is repeated tomorrow, especially seeing that the publishing of Ofcom's ruling has exposed another even more serious deception: the public vote at the 2005 comedy awards for the people's choice award being completely ignored, with the gong going to err, ITV's own Ant and Dec rather than the real winner Catherine Tate because Robbie Williams would apparently only present it if it went to them. The real issue here though is obvious: if the BBC so much as puts a foot wrong, it gets savaged by those diametrically opposed to almost everything it does, even if no one really lost out, the corporation apologies profusely, as it did over the ridiculous "Crowngate" affair which wasn't even its own fault and if those ultimately responsible lose their jobs, as Peter Fincham did. How different to ITV, where no one has been sacked and no one has resigned, and everyone simply just wants to move on, including apparently the newspapers so disturbed by the BBC's offences against the general public. As Ian Hislop once said, if this is justice, I'm a banana.
Labels: BBC bashing, fraud, ITV, Ofcom, TV fakery scandals
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