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back to article TV firm takes £2m hit for competition line scandal

Ofcom has fined GMTV £2m for failing to check up on its service provider, Opera Telecom, and thus allowing the public to get ripped off by an early winner selection scandal. There's no suggestion that GMTV asked Opera to break the rules, or had much of an idea what was going on. Where dubious behaviour was suspected it was …

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  1. Steve Evans

    So where does the fine go?

    So Ofcom now has +£2M, where does this go? Will the CEO take a nice bonus at some point?

    I think all telecoms related fines should go towards upgrading our telecoms infrastructure, cos BT aren't gonna do it when they can happily charge a large percentage of the country for the 50 year old copper/aluminium pair they have installed.

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  2. Philip Marshall

    Re: So where does the fine go?

    Easy, it goes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer Alasdair Darling's pockets at the Treasury.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Winners and losers

    Worth remembering in all this that although some callers lost out on a chance to win, this was balanced by the greater chance which the others gained - though if you ask me, the people who phone these lines are all losers.

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  4. Stuart

    Re: So where does the fine go?

    Steve, BT are currently working on 21CN to replace the copper...

    http://www.samknows.com/broadband/21cn_overview.php

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  5. Stuart Gray

    Re: Winners and Losers

    No, it doesn't make any difference to the chance of winning, since the winner was picked out of the total entry pool *up to that point*. It wasn't as though the phone system was set to accept only a fixed number of total entries (which gives a fixed odds on winning), then closed, and _then_ discarded 10% of these, so that the winner was picked from only 90% of the fixed total. No, the winner was picked from 100% of the total entry, but then the lines were kept open - so that 100% of those who called afterwards were losers.

    Stuart

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Peanuts

    Panorama estimated that they made £10,000,000 a year for four years.

    So :

    £40,000,000 - £2,000,000 = £38,000,000 profit.

    That'll discourage them from doing it again.

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  7. Steve

    RE : Peanuts

    While I agree that the total fine is insufficiently punitive, I find myself unable to accept any figures produced by that once great current affairs strand that has become little more than a tawdry stimulus for middle class hysteria. They probably just pulled them out of their arse.

    And don't even get me started about Horizon, unless you like reading the phrase 'dog fuckers' repeatedly in caps lock.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cynical

    Chuck 250K at Childline. If anyone objects to their quiz conduct, clearly they support cruelty to children. Ah, there's nothing like "think of the children" to kill criticism dead in its tracks.

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