Sky Sports rapped over phone contests

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Ofcom has rapped BSkyB over the knuckles for charging Irish viewers to take part in text-voting competitions they could not win.

The watchdog said the breaches of its code, which occurred in two editions of the Sky Sports magazine show Soccer AM and one of its summer counterpart, Cricket AM, were "serious" and would be held on record.

But he added that the compliance failures were not caused deliberately and the audience had not been misled intentionally.

The first breach took place on 2 August last year, when the votes cast by five Irish viewers in Cricket AM's Car Park Calypso competition were not registered because of a technical fault.

Then in Soccer AM's Tyne/Wear Dance-Off on 13 December and the same programme's Dance-Off 2009 on 3 January a combined total of 1,660 votes from the Republic of Ireland were not counted by the programme's software system, in one case due to human error, in the other because of a technical glitch.

Ofcom said Sky had taken "extensive remedial steps" to mitigate the harm caused to viewers such as refunding those affected and apologising to them, and had improved its compliance procedures.

Sky revealed the problems in May following spot checks made by Ofcom to ensure that its revised compliance procedures on the use of premium-rate phone services were being followed.


Source:guardian