BBC Fined 400k By Ofcom

As a consequence of the BBC running fraudulent competitions, Ofcom has fined the Corporation £400,000.
Undoubtedly, mistakes – whether deliberate or not – were made. And some kind of remedial action was necessary.
When ITV or GCap were recently fined, you didn’t hear me complaining. But both of those organisations are commercial companies, and therefore fines have to come straight from the bottom line. Shareholder’s receive lower dividends as the company makes a smaller profit.
The BBC is funded by us – the licence fee payers. £400,000 is equivalent to complete licence fees for 2,867 homes. And the cheques (the total amount is from several separate instances) have to be made payable to HM Paymaster General.
In other words, as a result of this fine, that’s £400,000 less that can be spent on programming. Storyville, for example, had a budget cut rumoured to be around £1m. Depending on how it was spent, that money could have made several hours of programming.
Did the BBC do wrong? Absolutely. Should those responsible accept the blame, and even in extreme cases, be fired? Certainly. But should the viewer foot the bill? I don’t think so.
Now I don’t have all the answers. What kind of powers should be available to a regulator to ensure that the state broadcaster doesn’t repeat these things in the future? Well job security of responsible people is one, although it’s usually the people at the bottom who feel that force. Is a particular producer solely responsible, and in any case, does that prevent other cases ever becoming exposed. Firing someone is simplistic but very extreme.
I don’t know what should be done aside from making right financial wrongs (e.g. reimbursing viewers or listeners who paid to enter competitions they had no chance of winning). But it seems to me that the BBC has reacted properly as the various frauds became apparent. It has in place now incredibly detailed systems – arguably too onerous – to prevent similar things happening again. It’s wearing its hair-shirt. Fining the viewers and listeners is not the answer.
As a postscript, please go over to The New Yorker’s website and read Charles Van Doren’s account of the quiz show scandals on the fifties, as depicted in the film Quiz Show. It’s a fascinating inside account of the first big competition scandal, and how it impacted Van Doren himself.


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