TV Home Forum

ITV breached Ofcom competition rules over postal votes

Some viewers who posted off competition entries for various shows "had no chance of winning".

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
JO
Josh
Quote:
ITV breached broadcasting rules with several of its viewer competitions, media watchdog Ofcom has ruled.

Some viewers who participated in competitions using a postal entry had "no chance of being selected to win", Ofcom said.

Competitions on shows like Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, This Morning, Loose Women and Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway were all involved.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55218398
Ittr and Roger Darthwell gave kudos
JF
JetixFann450
Oh boy, here we go again.
BR
Brekkie
To reclaim the cost of a stamp, just send an SAE to ITV Competition HQ in Derby.
JO
Josh
Brekkie posted:
To reclaim the cost of a stamp, just send an SAE to ITV Competition HQ in Derby.

...DE1 0NQ. Entrants must be 18 or over, lines close on the date shown on screen. For terms and privacy notice, go to itv.com/win. Good luck!
JO
Jonwo
Who still uses postal entries?
DB
dbl
Jonwo posted:
Who still uses postal entries?

Old people who aren't tech savvy I guess
SA
SA100
I believe there has a to be free a entry method. As these comps don’t have questions. And would therefor be a lottery with out a free entry method. And I guess itv picked post rather then via the website. To push people to phone vote.
TV
iloveTV1
Jonwo posted:
Who still uses postal entries?


It’s ‘free’, so some people enter, but there’s the stamp cost.

I stopped entering these in 2014 when they changed the competitions from a question which you could answer online for free to a random draw which cost money to enter.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
dbl posted:
Jonwo posted:
Who still uses postal entries?

Old people who aren't tech savvy I guess


It's cheaper to enter by post anyway. Especially if you use your massive stock of 1st class stamps you bought years ago...

Going up to 85p from next month, the cost has doubled in just ten years (2010 they were 41p), twice as fast as they doubled 1986-2008 (18p to 36p), and then they've shot up in price in the last decade. But I digress (I'm good at that).
AN
Andrew Founding member
SA100 posted:
I believe there has a to be free a entry method. As these comps don’t have questions. And would therefor be a lottery with out a free entry method. And I guess itv picked post rather then via the website. To push people to phone vote.

You can enter via the website but “entries cost two quid”
BR
Brekkie
iloveTV1 posted:
Jonwo posted:
Who still uses postal entries?


It’s ‘free’, so some people enter, but there’s the stamp cost.

I stopped entering these in 2014 when they changed the competitions from a question which you could answer online for free to a random draw which cost money to enter.

Although they were effectively always a random draw anyway. I assume there is a register somewhere of people who got the wrong answer in an ITV competition - probably at the casting offices of TOWIE.
parrferris, 030293 and what gave kudos
GO
gottago
SA100 posted:
I believe there has a to be free a entry method. As these comps don’t have questions. And would therefor be a lottery with out a free entry method. And I guess itv picked post rather then via the website. To push people to phone vote.

They offer web entry but you have to pay for it a la the phone method.

I'm pretty sure this is the resolution to the postal entry situation that came up a few months ago and it was a tiny percentage of the total entries received. Ultimately this is different to the phone-in scandal of 2007/8 as ITV haven't profited from the postal votes and it was ITV who discovered the issue and referred themselves to Ofcom. The phone-in scandal was a massive cover up and they were cheating the public out of millions.

Newer posts