ITV phone-in scandal bill will cost £18 million

Michael Grade, ITV’s chief blamed a ‘cultural failure’ after investigators discovered that viewers were tricked into making premium rate calls to the amount of nearly £8 million.

Three prime-time programmes as having ‘serious editorial issues’ were Soapstar Superstar, Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, and Ant and Dec’s Gameshow Marathon according to a review conducted by Deloitte.

ITV has put aside £7.8 million to reimburse viewers and thinks the bill for resolving the matter could be £18 million. Michael Grade said there was a serious cultural failure within ITV. The review has been used to assess viewers’ losses so we can compensate them. We deeply regret what happened and are sorry for breaking trust with viewers.

SMS and red-button voting has been suspended currently by ITV. However, Mr Grade is still expecting to vote in high quantities when the X Factor live show begins tomorrow night.

According to Michael Grade, disciplinary action has been taken but defended his decision not to dismiss any high-profile names saying that this would not resolve the issue. He said the effective solution is to change the culture, to change the systems.

The presenters of the programmes were unaware of any of the problems when their shows were aired. Ant McPartlin said they were extremely disappointed to discover that these irregularities occurred.

Story link: ITV phone-in scandal bill will cost £18 million