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Blue Peter kitten in BBC scandal

20/09/2007

The BBC has admitted four more breaches of its editorial standards on competitions and voting.

One of the breaches involves children's programme Blue Peter, which was fined £50,000 in July for faking the results of a phone-in competition and asking a child to pretend to be its winner.

An online vote to decide the name of a new kitten on the show should have resulted in the animal being called Cookie, but producers decided Socks would be better.

On BBC Asian Network's Film Café, producers "effectively over-ruled" an audience vote on the Bollywood programme and misleading competition results were read out on BBC 6Music shows presented by Clare McDonnell and Tom Robinson.

"I would like to repeat my apology to viewers and listeners who were misled by these editorial lapses," BBC director general Mark Thompson said.

"Although these lapses amount to tens of hours across one million hours of broadcasting, the BBC's standards must be as high in small-scale competitions as they are in the most major news story.

"I believe that the actions we have and are taking demonstrate the central importance the whole BBC places on getting it right."

A statement from the BBC Trust said it believed flaws in its training programmes had led producers to the "misguided belief that these decisions were in the interest of the programme".

It added: "The trust endorses the firm grip being taken by Mark Thompson which includes clear messages about what is expected of BBC staff and, where appropriate, disciplinary proceedings."

According to the Daily Telegraph, as many as 25 BBC staff face the sack for their part in the failures.

The developments come after broadcast union Bectu yesterday accused the broadcaster of making a "sacrificial lamb" out of producer Leona McCambridge, who was sacked from her BBC 6Music job for alleged gross misconduct.

Ms McCambridge was axed for her alleged involvement in the use of fake contestants in competitions on The Liz Kershaw Show.

A major internal BBC investigation was triggered by the phone-in scandals earlier this year which marred all of the major broadcasters.

In July Mr Thompson said a "zero tolerance" approach would be taken to instances of editorial breaches and announced a mandatory training programme for 16,500 staff.