New TV phone-in scandal: BBC kept £100,000 of Children In Need cash for itself

By PAUL REVOIR
Last updated at 10:45 10 May 2008

The BBC kept more than £100,000 viewers had pledged to charity for itself.

Staff knowingly withheld money that should have gone to causes including Children in Need and Comic Relief.

In another hammer blow to TV's reputation, the corporation has been ordered by its own ruling body, the BBC Trust, to apologise for the scandal on air.

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BBC shows Comic Relief Children In Need Sport Relief

Lost cash: Money taken by Comic Relief, Children In Need and Sports Relief should have been handed over to charities

Last night it also faced accusations from charities that its behaviour was immoral and disgraceful.

News of the racket came 24 hours after ITV was fined £5.7million for conning £8million from telephone voters to top-rated shows. It also emerged that a British Comedy Award for presenters Ant and Dec had been "fixed".

The BBC cash was generated by callers voting after phone lines had closed on about 20 shows, believed to include Eurovision and Fame Academy, between October 2005 and September 2007.

They were still charged for their call, typically around 25p a time.

The cash went into the bank account of BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial arm.

The racket was revealed by an internal audit of accounts which showed that a number of workers in Audiocall, part of BBC Worldwide, repeatedly kept money back.

The "small number" of staff involved face disciplinary action and dismissal, the BBC said last night.

But the BBC had to own up to a further embarrassment yesterday when it revealed it misled millions who watching the UK heat of Eurovision last year. Viewers of Making Your Mind Up, presented by Terry Wogan and Fearne Cotton on BBC1, were asked to start voting before phone lines had even opened.

As a result, they were being charged for calls that stood no chance of affecting the result.

The BBC said the winning act, Scooch, would still have come first even if the early votes had been counted.

BBC chairman Sir Michael Lyons said yesterday he was confident that they had uncovered the "full scale of the problem".

He admitted the number of programmes affected was "quite a lot", describing the scandal as a "serious failing".

Sir Michael said it was "not entirely clear" why staff had not flagged up what was happening, but said: "We're clear from this exhaustive exercise that there was no criminal intent."

The chairman, who blamed "unacceptable behaviour from a small number of staff", said the BBC's problems were nowhere near the scale of ITV's.

On Thursday the full extent of the phone-in scandal was brought to light after two devastating reports into the swindles by ITV and yesterday there were renewed calls for either the police or the Serious Fraud Office to get involved.

Staff at the BBC only revealed what had happened when City auditors PWC checked the books after the last series of phone-in scandals in the autumn.

Yesterday the BBC Trust admitted that about £106,000 had been wrongfully withheld and would now be given to charity.

With interest, the total to be donated is more than £123,000.

A further £6,000, which Audiocall would normally have kept for its own costs, will also be handed to charity after the Making You Mind Up fiasco.

Yesterday's revelations angered charities which fear they will damage donors' trust in future telethons and phone votes.

Adam Rothwell, of Intelligent Giving, said: "It is obviously immoral to behave in that way, to consciously say we could have given this money to charity, but we are going to keep it."

He added: "It is not the BBC that are going to lose out, it will be the charities who they have been trying to help that are going to be worse off after this.

"People are not going to want to phone in anymore their confidence will be really hit by this breach of trust.

Megan Pacey, of the Institute of Fund-Raising, said: "The BBC has risked damaging the trust and confidence that the public have in charitable appeals. "Sadly, it is the beneficiaries of these BBC appeals that are likely to suffer in the event that donations decrease." The BBC has run into trouble over charity shows before.

Comic Relief, Children in Need and Sport Relief all faked competitions, leaving viewers with no chance of winning.

In a separate case, Blue Peter admitted making up a phone-in competition winner

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Comments (27)

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not add your thoughts below?

Just another good reason to not donate money via these evidently crooked 'phone-in programmes.

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- David, UK, 09/5/2008 22:47

I think it is high time the BBC were investigated. To with-hold funds raised for sick children is immoral. It amazes me all these telephone gaming scandals, if it were you or me on the street up to this malarkey, we'd have been banged to rights by now. The pressure on families and individuals who care alike to give to children in need, when we are all struggling to make mortgage payments and feed our own children, is immense, as you feel so blessed to have children of your own who are not suffering. This is a highly sensitive subject and one that nobody can feel as though they can refuse. There are people out there that have done some remarkable things to raise money for children in need, who would not have done such things to raise money for the BBC coffers. This is absolutely disgusting.

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- Katherine, Penzance, Cornwall, 09/5/2008 22:42

The BBC should hand over the £100,000 of money for Children in Need. I work at one of the projects that is supported by Children in Need and I am disgusted at the BBC's behaviour - this means people are less likely to donate and charities all over the country will be affected.

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- Sarah, London, UK, 09/5/2008 22:33