The BBC has found a batch of faked results for some of its most popular competitive shows. All such programming, in both radio and TV, has been halted.
Serious editorial breaches were found in six shows, including Comic Relief. Director general Mark Thompson said the incidents were "totally unacceptable".
Mr Thompson has outlined a "zero tolerance" approach to any future lapses in editorial judgement.
He also ordered an independent inquiry into footage that wrongly implied the Queen walked out of a photo session.
All phone-related competitions on BBC TV and radio ceased from midnight on Wednesday, while interactive and online competitions will be taken down as soon as possible.
Asked about refunds for callers to the faked competitions, Mr Thompson told BBC News 24: "If there is a way of recompensing then we will do it."
This is where the reporting breaks down, at least for a non-Brit me. I'm guessing callers who were phoning in on these shows were being charged for the privilege, but I could be wrong. Either that, or they were asked for donations in order to be eligible for prizes. From the Guardian story:
In what will be seen as the first major test for the new BBC Trust, Mr Thompson outlined to them six new incidents in which BBC staff had passed themselves off as members of the public or a fictitious winner had been announced.
They included incidents during the BBC's flagship telethons Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief that regularly attract audiences of over 10 million and raise tens of millions of pounds for charity. Other incidents involved winners being faked on Liz Kershaw's radio show on 6Music, which was presented as live despite being recorded, a World Service show and the children's TV programme TMi. The BBC Trust said it was "deeply concerned that significant failures of control and compliance within the BBC ...have compromised the BBC's values of accuracy and honesty".
The media regulator, Ofcom, will also look at the incidents and is likely to launch its own inquiries. It has already fined the BBC £50,000 over Blue Peter, and further financial penalties are a possibility.
The deception was compounded because Sport Relief, like Comic Relief and Children in Need, was contained in a list of nearly 200 programmes given a clean bill of health in May as the BBC unveiled its internal report into the Blue Peter scandal. ...
The Ofcom report by the former BBC news executive Richard Ayre into premium rate phone lines proposed a series of tough measures to stamp out what it found was a "gold rush" mentality among broadcasters as they sought to tap into the new revenue stream.
What was the revenue stream?!?! This Media Guardian story (firewalled) hints at an answer:
Just a year ago, participation TV was seen as a potential cash cow for broadcasters which are witnessing advertising revenues trickling to other media and are being hit by the implementation of stricter rules on junk food advertising.
To this end, ITV Play was launched with much fanfare amid bold predictions of making £20m profit in its first year of operation.
However, the extent of the problem, as outlined today by the BBC, shows that perhaps current attempts to boost self-regulation are not enough.
This Independent story has more on the misdeeds:
In one of the latest incidents, a member of the production team for Comic Relief posed as a viewer in March, after the audience was invited to donate money by calling in to win prizes belonging to a famous couple.
The first two callers taken on air gave incorrect answers, during which time other waiting callers were lost. Then, a member of the production team posing as a caller was heard successfully answering the question on air.
In Children In Need - which the BBC describes as the "most important single event" in its calendar - during a broadcast from Scotland in November 2005, the name of a fictitious winner was read out on air after a technical mistake prevented genuine callers from getting an open phone line.
In Sport Relief last July, viewers were led to believe a member of the audience won a competition that was open to the public but the caller was part of the production team, as was a caller on BBC2's children's programme, TMi, last September.
Meanwhile, pre-recorded radio programmes of The Liz Kershaw Show were presented as if they were live, including a competition announcement that appeared to feature genuine listeners phoning in to take part, one of whom would win a prize on air.
White Label, a weekly pop programme on the World Service transmitted until April last year, announced fake winners for the CD prize slot in the show, when no winning entries had actually been received.
In fact, there were no competitions or prizes in shows during 2005 and 2006 and all the callers were members of the production team and their friends. The practice was only stopped when a new producer took over the programme in December last year.
Here's the Beeb's description of transgressions.