BBC Suspends all Phone Competitions

The BBC, Britain's national TV organisation, has suspended all phone in and SMS campaigns associated with its programs after a series of highly visible mistakes. Ofcom, the British TV regulation body, fined the BBC £50,000 after they faked a winner on the popular children's show Blue Peter - and since then all of the BBC's phone related promotions have come under scrutiny.

Pending further guidelines on honesty and conduct being put in place and enforced, all phone related activities are on hold. These new conduct guidelines will be designed to ensure BBC producers keep to the high levels of honesty and transparency expected from the BBC, a company funded by public money. It will be interesting to see how this trickles down across all phone promotions in the UK. There are many channels on satellite & cable TV dedicated to separating people from their money using complex quiz promotions that are almost impossible to win, amongst others.