TV voting rip-offs undermine faith in broadcast

New research reveals that TV and radio phone-in rip-offs have damaged people's perception of the honesty of broadcast ads and the unbiased nature of its news.

Research carried out in April by online permission-based data collection and entertainment company PDV, which has more than three million online members, shows that the rip-offs have seriously undermined the broadcast medium's reputation.

Now 14 per cent think the editorial content of newspapers is more trustworthy than that on TV.

"Our research shows that even a year after the first voting deception was unmasked, viewers have not forgotten and the majority have not forgiven," said Derick Hill, chairman of PDV.

"Around a sixth of viewers revised their opinion of the broadcast medium as a whole after the rip-offs, judging it to be less trustworthy, honest and unbiased then they had previously".

"The majority - 47 per cent - no longer believe radio and TV ads are honest and trustworthy".

This indicates that ITV's GBP4million fine over game show rip-offs may be the least of its worries.

All but two per cent of the 2,128 respondents had heard about the voting scams.

Those who had heard were asked (using CCB fast.MAP research software) for their reaction.

The majority of competitors (45 per cent) spent between GBP1 and GBP5 on their phone calls, nine per cent spent between GBP11 and GBP50, one per cent spent more than GBP100.

Only four per cent applied to get money back.

"The fact that most people didn't even apply to get their money back shows it was not the biggest issue for them," said Hill.

"The brand damage had already been done and the offer of recompense had little impact on people's opinion, which was already fixed".

Viewers' opinions on the honestly of broadcast news and advertising, pre and post-scam, are the most revealing - 15 per cent said they'd revised their views after the scams, meaning 47 per cent now think TV and radio ads are not honest and trustworthy.

Two-fifths of viewers continue to believe radio and TV report news in an unbiased way, but almost as many 38 per cent don't and 22 per cent aren't sure.

A fifth (21 per cent) had revised their opinion after the scams.

The scams also involved GMTV, which has been fined GBP2million for ripping viewers off by up to GBP40million on its phone-ins, including Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, alleged to have cost viewers GBP8million in wasted phone calls.

Other discredited programmes include: X-factor, which charged voters for calls made after winners had been selected; Richard and Judy - who were forced to apologise - and even Blue Peter, which ignored the results of a children's vote to name a kitten and imposed their own.

When the rip-offs were revealed, 72 per cent of previous contestants (42 per cent of respondents) stopped taking part.

A year later, a third (35 per cent) say they will probably stop participating completely and a further 17 per cent say they will participate less often.

"Perhaps more worrying is the fact that the majority (41 per cent) no longer trust the TV and radio stations involved to honestly report the results of telephone votes and a further 32 per cent are no longer sure they do - meaning only 27 per cent have re-built their trust in these brands," said Hill.

"Even worse, only 36 per cent have retained trust in similar shows and almost as many (32 per cent) believe similar shows can not now be trusted.

"Some 67 per cent felt the TV companies behind the shows had also been damaged and only 19 per cent disagreed".

Back to top