Even kids are deceived by Beeb on Blue Peter

[Teddy Bear]

The following story is self-explanatory, but doesn't it highlight the attitude at the BBC that producers think they can do this kind of thing without a second thought?

Blue Peter sorry over fake winner

The hosts of BBC children's programme Blue Peter have apologised to viewers after the results of a competition were faked last November.
A technical problem meant viewers calling for the Whose Shoes contest did not get through to the studio.

Instead, a visiting child was asked to pose as a caller live on air.

Host Konnie Huq said: "We'd like to say sorry to you because when this mistake happened we let you down." The BBC did not profit from the calls.

BBC Children's controller Richard Deverell called the incident a "serious error of judgement".

Callers were asked to phone in and identify a mystery celebrity's shoes. More than 13,800 people entered, with calls costing 10p each, including 3.25p for the Unicef charity.

But an "unavoidable technical difficulty" meant producers were unable to access the callers' details and so found a stand-in.

The child they found was already in the studio because she had won a separate competition.

Premium phone line regulator Icstis is investigating the incident, which was discovered when another visitor to the programme set, Mona Zahoor, wrote to the BBC's Have Your Say messageboard.

Falling short

"We were all quite horrified when it happened," she told the BBC News website.

An internal investigation confirmed the error and a separate independent review will be carried out into the circumstances surrounding the competition.

"This edition of the programme fell short of the high standards Blue Peter viewers quite rightly expect," Blue Peter editor Richard Marson said.

"We are very sorry for the way this competition was conducted."


Blue Peter will celebrate its 50th birthday in October 2008
The competition has been re-run, with a new winner chosen from the original callers. The problem will "never happen again", viewers have been told.

"I would like to apologise unequivocally to viewers, to all the children who took part in the competition," Mr Deverell said.

"We have already apologised directly to the child involved and her family for this incident."

Mr Deverell called the faking of the competition an "exceptional incident", and said the person responsible had acted "in a panic".

But speaking to Radio Five Live, he refused to rule out the possibility that staff would be sacked over the incident.

A freephone number - 08000 565 363 - is available for viewers who took part in the competition and would like more information.

Viewers can also find information on the Blue Peter website.

But Ms Zahoor, whose information led to the discovery, said she thought the BBC's reaction was "silly".

"I didn't realise that it would be blown out of all proportion," she said, adding that she had refused to lodge a formal complaint about the show.

[Teddy Bear]

The Telegraph carries this story today, and mentions another similar incident on irregularities involving a phone-in for another programme - 'Saturday's Kitchen', which the Beeb is being investigated for. This refutes the statement by Richard Deverell above, that what happened at Blue Peter was an 'exceptional incident'.

Blue Peter says sorry for fake phone-in winner
By David Derbyshire, Consumer Affairs Editor
Last Updated: 10:20am GMT 15/03/2007

Blue Peter made an on-air apology yesterday after becoming the latest programme to be caught up in the premium rate phone-ins row.

The children's show, which celebrates its 50th birthday next year, admitted that it faked the results of a charity telephone competition during a live programme last year.

Viewers had been invited to call a premium rate number and leave their details for a chance to win a toy. Nearly 14,000 calls were made.

However, a "technical failure" meant the show's producers were unable to get access to the names.

Rather than admit the problem, a member of staff asked a girl visiting the studio to pose as a winner and answer the question live on air.

Yesterday Konnie Huq, one of the programme's presenters, told viewers: "We'd like to say sorry to you because when this mistake happened, we let you down."

The admission will come as a further embarrassment for the corporation, which is already being investigated for irregularities during a phone-in for Saturday Kitchen.

Richard Deverell, the controller of BBC children's television, called it a "serious error of judgment".

"Whilst I am satisfied that there was no premeditated attempt to deceive or mislead viewers, the decision to put a child on air in this way was a serious error of judgment, and does not conform to either the BBC's own guidelines or the high standards we set ourselves in children's programmes," said Mr Deverell.

The BBC was unable to say yesterday whether it would be taking disciplinary action against the production team, led by editor Richard Marson.

Mr Marson said: "We are absolutely committed to running competitions that are fair to all entrants and we are very sorry for the way this competition was conducted."

According to Blue Peter, 13,862 people rang the competition phoneline on Nov 27, with 3.25p from each 10p call going to the programme's Unicef appeal. The rest went to the telephone services operator Telecom Express.

The BBC has set up a review of live competitions on Children's BBC and ordered "intensive staff training".

Using the details of children who had called the phoneline in November, it picked a new winner yesterday. Telecom Express has given £381 to the appeal.

A free phone number -08000 565363 - has been set up for anyone who took part in the competition and has concerns.

The premium rate regulator Icstis confirmed that it had added Blue Peter to its long list of programmes being investigated over phone-ins.

On Tuesday, Channel 4 suspended competitions in its horseracing coverage.

Icstis is investigating six other shows, including Channel 4's Richard and Judy and ITV1's I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here.

Last week the broadcaster Five admitted "winning contestants" on its Brainteaser quiz were faked.

[Teddy Bear]

In typical BBC fashion of denying the bloody obvious, its director Mark Thompson stated that"there had been no intent to deliberately mislead the public or gain financially over the TV phone-in scandal."

This is an outright lie.
In the case of Blue Peter, somebody made the decision to substitute a winner when they realise they had made a mistake. This shows a clear attempt to deliberately mislead. What would be more accurate (as if the BBC is really interested in that :, would have been to say there had been no intent to get caught.

BBC CHIEF: NO INTENT TO MISLEAD
By Emily Nash 19/03/2007
BBC Director-general Mark Thompson insisted yesterday there had been no intent to deliberately mislead the public or gain financially over the TV phone-in scandal.

Speaking ahead of his first grilling over the furore by members of the BBC Trust on Wednesday, he admitted it gave the industry a "wake-up call".

He said: "The centre-piece for us is about reestablishing trust.

Advertisement"I'm very happy to join in the apologies we have made about Blue Peter and Saturday Kitchen.

"This has been a wakeup call for the industry. We have to look at the way we use phone lines."

Mr Thompson's comments came days after the Mirror revealed a third show, Smile, asked viewers to join in a live game, even though it was sometimes pre-recorded.

He said: "We don't believe there is a problem with Smile. Blue Peter and Saturday Kitchen were genuinely quite serious errors of judgment."

Mr Thompson refused to reveal whether anyone would face the sack and stressed the BBC did not use premium rate phone lines to make money.

Watchdog Ofcom is running 23 probes into shows and premium rate phone line regulator Icstis is investigating 15 more.

[Teddy Bear]

Now GMTV has been accused of taking in millions for years in premium rate phone calls when the winner had already been decided. Why Panorama is going to expose this corruption, when the BBC themselves have been accused of the same thing is beyond me. 'Pot, Kettle, and Black' come to mind.

Viewers count the cost of GMTV phone-ins
By Nicole Martin and Christopher Hope
Last Updated: 12:54am BST 23/04/2007

GMTV has long been seen as the benevolent face of breakfast television, drawing in six million viewers a day by combining gentle banter with light-hearted stories about celebrity couples, soap opera stars and have-a-go heroes.

Today, however, its saccharine image is shattered by news that it has become the latest programme to be caught up in the premium rate phone-in allegations.

The claims by BBC's Panorama programme tonight - strongly denied by Opera Interactive Technology, which ran the competition phone lines for GMTV - will leave thousands of viewers furious at the claim that they are out of pocket, in some cases by as much as hundreds of pounds.

Each morning tens of thousands of callers were paying as much as £1.80 a time in an attempt to enter the GMTV quiz - yet Panorama claims up to half of them were throwing their money away.

Norma Senior, of Hackney, east London, who spent more than £500 phoning GMTV competitions, said: "I'm very angry, I'm very upset, I feel cheated. I've entered GMTV competitions in good faith, because I trust the brand of GMTV household names.

"I feel robbed. It's as if I've just opened a window and thrown my money out. Well, my trust in the programme has gone out of the window."

Samantha Pedder, 37, from Saffron Walden, Essex, said: "I've spent near on a thousand pounds, but you think, 'Well, I'm in with a chance'. To find out that I wasn't makes me really angry and I want my money back. How dare they? It makes us look like idiots."

Christine Kielczki, from Reading, said: "I would usually play two or three times a week, maybe more. I feel let down and disappointed."

Last night GMTV in a statement said: "The Panorama investigation has uncovered certain irregularities in the way Opera has been managing GMTV interactive services in the past. GMTV was not aware of these irregularities.

"GMTV is very concerned to ensure that its competitions are fair and comply with the respective Icstis [the premium rate services regulator] and Ofcom [the television regulator] codes and for that reason, more than a month ago, we instructed Deloitte to carry out an independent review of both GMTV's and Opera's current interactive systems and processes.

"Deloitte has now completed its review and we received their report on Thursday. On the basis of information available and Deloitte's findings, we are confident that our competitions are being operated in accordance with Ofcom and Icstis codes."

GMTV is the latest in a string of programme to be accused of abusing premium rate phone competitions. Channel Four's Richard and Judy programme recently apologised after it emerged that a shortlist of winners for its You Say, We Pay quiz was picked before competition phone lines closed and BBC1's Blue Peter admitted that it faked the winner of a charity telephone competition during a live broadcast last year.

[Teddy Bear]

In its usual 'fair and balanced' manner. the BBC Panorama programme mentioned in one sentence at the beginning that its own Blue Peter had also been found to be a scam, but spent the rest on the corruption of GMTV, Richard and Judy, and the other premium rate call shows.

Now BBC producers can sleep tonight in the belief that they are more honest and upright.

[Teddy Bear]

The Times are being 'very gentle' on the BBC when you consider what these corrupt individuals actually did. Actually "congratulating a producer for 'quick thinking' for pulling off a scam" shows the mindset running things there - until they get caught, then they are full of self recrimination, at least in public. but no actual FIRINGS, which should be in order.

Blue Peter phone-ins banned after double con

Adam Sherwin, Media Correspondent
Blue Peter will be banned from holding phone-in competitions after a BBC review found that it had conned thousands of children into taking part in a contest they had no chance of winning.

Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, delivered a report on the operation of premium-rate services to the BBC Trust yesterday.

It detailed how, when the telephone system failed during a competition, a panicked researcher plucked a child from a Blue Peter studio “focus group” and fed her the correct answer. She was featured as the winner of the competition.

Blue Peter producers covered up the incident. At a production meeting three days later the researcher was congratulated for her “quick thinking”, the report said.

The Blue Peter team then allowed the rigged competition to be rebroadcast on CBBC, the children’s channel, with the phone-in number still on the screen, prompting a further 3,500 children to call in. Richard Marson, then editor of Blue Peter, has since moved to another job within the BBC.

Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said: “The errors were serious as they resulted in children being misled to participate in a competition they had no chance of winning and in a child being involved in deceiving the audience. These grave mistakes were compounded by serious errors of judgment in not referring the matter to senior management.”

The possibility of technological error means that the BBC cannot guarantee that phone-in competitions can be run transparently and fairly within Blue Peter’s half-hour programme. Mr Thompson said: “We will suspend with immediate effect any further live telephone competitions.”

He said that the inexperience of the young Blue Peter staff was a factor in the incident and promised better training and a senior editorial figure on each BBC programme to oversee interactive elements.

Sir Michael said: “The culture of the BBC must be such that any proposal to mislead audiences is instantly dismissed as wholly inappropriate.” The suspension will not affect “vote-offs”, such as those on Any Dream Will Do.

The children’s department said that it used premium-rate services to cap the cost of call charges (typically at about 10p). The BBC does not take any profit from phone-ins.

Mr Thompson said that BBC phone-in competitions must have a “clear editorial purpose . . . Skill must be required to win when premium-rate lines are used, otherwise the competition may be illegal”.

The review also found that the cookery programme Saturday Kitchen misled viewers into believing that they were calling a live programme when in fact it had been prerecorded.

Viewers were asked to choose which pudding Ea-monn Holmes should eat “live”. However, Holmes was presenting a show on Radio 5 Live at the time. The trust criticised the Saturday Kitchen claim as “misleading”.

The BBC failures were uncovered during a series of phone-in scandals. Investigations by Ofcom and Icstis, the premium-rate regulator, are continuing.

[Teddy Bear]

Today the BBC were fined £50,000 by the courts for the deception by Blue Peter.

To put this into perspective, this equates to about 420 licence fees, or 420 people who have been fined or imprisoned for not paying this corrupt organisation to carry on their deception that they are fulfilling their mandate. While we know the BBC regard their obligation with the same 'reverence' as they showed to their Blue Peter audience, the only difference being they haven't been taken to task for the former - yet.

If you pay your licence fee, you are supporting corruption. If you want information on how not to pay it visit this site.

[indikit]

Blue Peter? Is this middle class flagship still going?

I hear that it was getting increasingly hard for the producers to find kids willing to sit and be indoctrinated by this leftie toddler training pap so they had to recruit some ex page 3 model to front it.

I could be wrong as I never, ever, ever watch the BBC.

[Teddy Bear]

Brainwashing Bourgeois Communists?

[Teddy Bear]

BBC faked viewers' phone poll to name the Blue Peter cat

A former Blue Peter editor is understood to have been suspended after it emerged today that a viewers' poll to name a cat had been rigged.

Richard Marson, who was involved in Blue Peter's faked phone-in scandal, is understood to have been sent home this week over the incident in January last year.

He is accused of choosing a different name for the cat to the one voted for in an online poll by viewers. According to MediaGuardian, the cat was named Socks after the poll closed - the name of former U.S. president Bill Clinton's cat.

Mr Marson is understood to be consulting his lawyer over the suspension. A source told MediaGuardian that Mr Marson's colleagues were 'in shock' at the decision to suspend him.

BBC bosses today declined to comment.

At the centre of the latest BBC scandal is Socks the Blue Peter cat
The move comes as a BBC producer today became the first person to be sacked over the faked phone-in scandal.

In an unprecedented move, Leona McCambridge, a producer on BBC 6 Music, is said to have been visited at home yesterday by 6 Music and Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas and told of the decision to summarily dismiss her for gross misconduct.


It follows an internal investigation into claims that BBC staff repeatedly posed as competition winners on the Liz Kershaw show - one of several serious breaches of the BBC's editorial codes uncovered by management in July.

While the programmes appeared to be broadcast live they were in fact pre-recorded and no genuine listeners were able to take part.

Ms McCambridge, understood to be in her thirties and one of several BBC staff told to stand aside from their jobs pending an inquiry, is the first to be axed, but insiders today claimed that more will follow.

Also under investigation is BBC 6 Music head of programmes Ric Blaxill, who, insiders allege, was aware of the deceit and engaged in similar stunts while acting as a stand-in producer on the Russell Brand show. He is said to have been 'on leave' since 6 September.

Ms Douglas was expected to address BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music staff at an emergency meeting this morning.

But union leaders today accused the BBC of making Ms McCambridge a 'sacrificial lamb'. She is now planning to appeal against her dismissal through broadcast union Bectu.

The union's assistant general secretary Luke Crawley told the Mail's sister newspaper The Evening Standard: "The BBC has dismissed a fairly junior member of staff. It's disappointing that they have failed to address this problem where it starts, which is at the top with programme and network heads."

He said claims that Ms McCambridge had been visited at home by Ms Douglas, accompanied by three members of personnel staff, were 'unprecedented'.

He added: "Gross misconduct usually applies to things like theft or fighting, where someone has reaped benefit from their actions."

Another union source said: "These people don't formulate the policy, they arrive on a show where it is already established and it is made clear to them that if they question that it would end their career on that show."

Ms McCambridge had since been working as a producer on the Gideon Coe slot - for which she won a Sony award. During her BBC career she also worked on the Andrew Collins show and John Peel Sessions.

According to a BBC insider, the Liz Kershaw show - taken off air in the summer - is now unlikely to return.

Internal investigations are still under way into similar breaches on other shows, as well as the editing of footage of a documentary about the Queen for a press launch. The BBC refused to comment on the sacking.

[Teddy Bear]

According to The Times today, Blue Peter ran its first scam as far back as 1962 when they substituted its original dog with another similar one to avoid 'distressing its viewers'. Now producers used 'Socks' instead of the name 'Puss' selected by the majority of viewers, deeming it 'inappropriate'.

Just for a second think about the type of mind that deems 'Puss' used by children for a cat, to be inappropriate. Shows the BBC mindset to a tee.

They also raise a valid point, how come only junior staff are being suspended or fired? Since pressure comes from the top, why aren't the managers facing the chop?

Rhetorical questions really, in the accent of Forrest Gump, 'corruption is; as corruption does.

Socks, the Blue Peter cat who could cost BBC staff their jobs
Dan Sabbagh, Adam Sherwin
The television programme Blue Peter was accused yesterday of deceiving children for the second time in a year as the BBC removed staff blamed for a series of phone-in scandals that have damaged its credibility with the public.

A former producer on the children’s show, Britain’s longest-running, has been suspended after it emerged that production staff had ignored the result of a viewer poll to choose a name for the Blue Peter cat last year.

The suspension was disclosed a day after the BBC dismissed Leona McCambridge, a producer on Liz Kershaw’s 6 Music programme, for gross misconduct. One of her bosses, Ric Blaxill, 6 Music head of programmes, is also believed to be under threat.

In July, the BBC admitted that Liz Kershaw’s show ran a fake phone-in using production staff posing as members of the public in a recorded programme that pretended to be live. The fake phone-ins, supposedly featuring listeners competing for prizes, ran from 2005 until December 2006.

Socks was the name chosen for the Blue Peter cat by the programme’s producers, although insiders said that the decision was taken because the most common name selected – a variant on Puss – was deemed to be inappropriate.

Earlier this year, Blue Peter was dragged into controversy when it was found that production staff had faked the result of a phone-in competition, picking a child from the audience to answer the question live on air because the phone lines had failed. That prompted an on-air apology by presenters, as the BBC became engulfed in the phone-in scandals that have hit all the major broadcasters.

Nor is it the first time that viewers have been deceived when it comes to Blue Peter pets. The original Petra, the programme’s dog, died of distemper shortly after first appearing on screen in 1962. At that time, in the belief that children would be unecessarily upset, a similar dog was found as a replacement. What had really happened remained a secret for three decades.

Other staff are expected to be suspended in the next few days, with suggestions that as many as 25 could eventually face action, after about five were told not to report for work when the first set of scandals broke in July.

A statement is not expected from the BBC until the end of the week, although the BBC Trust was briefed by Mark Thompson, the Director-General, about new and existing revelations at its monthly meeting yesterday. That meeting also saw the trust order Mr Thompson to make savings of 3 per cent a year every year for five years from 2008, without closing any television channel or radio station.

However, Mr Thompson’s action against middle-level and junior executives has become highly unpopular, as it has so far left senior managers untouched.

Luke Crawley, an offical with the broadcasting union Bectu, said: “Why is it that junior staff are being target-ed? It is very peculiar that senior executives are not in the frame – these after all are the people whose demand for ratings puts others under intense pressure.”

Mr Blaxill, a former Top of the Pops executive producer and creative director of Capital Radio, is one of the most experienced figures in music broadcasting. If he departs he would be the most senior casualty at the BBC so far. He has been on leave for two weeks while the BBC investigates his conduct.

Leona McCambridge, a Sony Award-winning producer who was dismissed by Lesley Douglas, the BBC 6 Music and Radio 2 Controller, is appealing against her dismissal and is being supported by Bectu. Ms McCambridge is expected to claim that she was following procedures established by more senior BBC Radio figures.

[Teddy Bear]

In the 'comments' section of the above article was this one, which fairly incensed me:

I can promise you, having working at various bits of the BBC for the last 15 years, that there is no "culture of contempt", so please don't cast that particular stone. It's just a whole load of people, many of them not well paid, just getting on with their jobs, and working under ridiculous pressure, not least the pressure brought to bear by the commercial sector of the media, who demand that the BBC competes for the same bums on seats whilst operating as a monastery. BBC employees are licence fee payers too.

I can't comment on the individual case, as I know the people involved, and it's ongoing, but I will say that it's not very attractive to applaud when people lose their jobs - especially when you don't know the full facts.

Andrew Collins, London,

To which I responded, and unlike the BBC with its own agenda, the Times printed:

Andrew Collins above personifies the blinkard mindset so prevalent at the Beeb.
First he puts his colleagues forward as 'martyrs' for the cause, like they should really achieve sainthood for the work they do, when in fact they are more than overpaid for the poor quality, biased reporting and copycat and repeat programming, instead of fulfilling their mandate and promoting quality creativity.

He sees the Beebs' obligation is to satisfy the commercial media pressure and not the public remit of fulfilling its charter FIRST AND FOREMOST - without exception.

And finally, he tries to be our conscience telling us what's right and wrong, when HE SHOULD BE EXAMINING HIS OWN AS WELL AS THAT OF HIS COLLEAGUES.

It's your mates who have been found wanting.
Your license fee payment is what you get for working there; We get corruption for ours.

Ted Berra, Leatherhead, Surrey

[Teddy Bear]

A new Blue Peter scam has come to light. It occurred a couple of years ago, and you can read the details below. What I find most disturbing is the statement the BBC have made, inserted at the end of the story. It stuck out in my mind as I was reading it that something was amiss here, and I had to reread it a few times to ascertain what it was.

Here's the statement: He added: "In recent months we’ve taken a number of measures to ensure we get these things completely right, including the introduction of special training, so that viewers can continue to have complete confidence in the programme."

"Viewers can continue to have complete confidence...."

If they were being forthright then they would have to say 'regain confidence', instead of continue to have complete confidence. In other words this is one of their methods used to brainwash the public.

If you detect similar ploys used elsewhere. please post it to this site. This is quite sordid - BIG BROTHER in action.

Blue Peter in new fake scandal over 'viewers'
By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
Last Updated: 1:28pm GMT 09/11/2007

Blue Peter is at the centre of another fakery row after it admitted that two competition winners who appeared on the show were in fact child actors.

The BBC’s long-running children’s programme used the actors from a local drama group in an effort to make the show more lively and entertaining.

The deception is deeply embarrassing for Blue Peter, which is trying to win back the trust of viewers after a string of scandals in which bosses rigged an online poll to name the show’s cat and asked a young visitor to pose as a competition winner.

In the latest incident, children were asked to apply via the Blue Peter website for the chance to interview John Culshaw, the Dead Ringers impersonator.

They were told that those who submitted the best questions would be invited to quiz the star at the programme’s west London studios.

But of the six who actually appeared on the show, two were supplied by a local drama group to liven up the slot.

The deception, which took place two years ago, came to light after the actors told one of the genuine winners that they were from a drama group and had not submitted a question.

Sources close to the programme said the child actors were contacted because the show had simply not received enough interesting questions from viewers.

"Children’s programmes work with drama schools all the time," he said. "These are not paid actors but simply children who are lively, articulate and intelligent, and work very well on TV."

The latest incident failed to emerge during an internal BBC investigation ordered by the director general earlier this year following the wrongly edited footage of the Queen.

It follows two other instances of viewer deception, which led to the sacking of show’s former editor Richard Marson in October.

He was running Blue Peter when its production team faked the winner of an online poll to name the show’s cat. Bosses ignored the winning name Cookie in favour of Socks.

He was also in charge of the programme when the BBC was fined £50,000 for faking a competition result by encouraging a girl who was visiting the studio to pose as the winner. Mr Marson was at the helm when the latest incident took place.

A BBC spokesman admitted that the programme should not have given viewers the impression that all the competition winners had picked from the website.

"But none of the children was paid, the item in question was not a competition and no prizes were offered or awarded," he said. "It would have been preferable not to have given viewers the impression that all the children in the item had contacted the programme through the website."

He added: In recent months we’ve taken a number of measures to ensure we get these things completely right, including the introduction of special training, so that viewers can continue to have complete confidence in the programme."