BBC shame

[Alan]

BBC FACE COPS FRAUD PROBE

He wrote in a letter: "Please could you confirm that the police will fully investigate allegations that a very serious fraud has taken place within the BBC.

"These financial irregularities are a serious matter and should be treated as such - not least because the BBC is a public corporation funded by taxpayers." The move came as up to phone-in scams were carried out on flagship shows including Children In Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief.

The Liz Kershaw Show on BBC 6 Music, CBBC show TMi and the World Service's White Label pop programme also cheated viewers.

The Beeb immediately scrapped all TV and radio phone-in contests and is taking down its interactive and online competitions.

BBC Deputy Director-General Mark Byford has been summoned to the Commons on Tuesday to explain the affair to MPs on the culture select committee.

His boss Director-General Mark Thompson told staff yesterday that the situation was "totally unacceptable".

BBC fined £50,000 for Blue Peter scandal

The BBC must pay an unprecedented £50,000 fine over the Blue Peter phone-in scandal in which a young studio guest posed as a competition winner.

Ofcom imposed the first financial penalty levied against the corporation after finding the BBC guilty of deceiving viewers and breaching a bond of trust with children.

The scandal erupted when the telephone system failed during a phone-in competition. A panicked researcher plucked a child from the Blue Peter studio and fed her the correct answer. She was put on air from a studio phone and named as the winner of the competition.

Nearly 40,000 viewers who called the premium-rate line had no chance of winning. But the researcher was congratulated for her “quick thinking” by producers and the programme’s editor failed to report the deception to BBC management. It was eventually exposed during a wave of phone-in scandals when an adult who had been in the studio blew the whistle. Ofcom found the BBC guilty of “serious breaches” of the broadcasting code, “deception” and of making a child “complicit” in that deception.

A spokesman said: “The trust expects BBC management to continue to demonstrate a commitment to learning from these breaches. The culture of the BBC must be such that any proposal to mislead audiences is instantly dismissed as wholly inappropriate.”

BBC apologises to Queen over footage

Scenes of the pair clashing over the request were followed by footage of the Queen walking down a corridor and telling her lady-in-waiting: "I'm not changing anything. I've had enough dressing like this, thank you very much."

But the footage was actually filmed as the Queen made her way to the sitting.

The BBC said: "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely. This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was mis-represented.

"The BBC would like to apologise to both the Queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused."

Tonight the BBC claimed that the clip was never intended to be seen by the public, and was only shown at a press preview after a mix-up between the corporation and RDF Media, the production company who had edited the footage.

Next they should take a look at their "News" section. Probably put this in the shade.