ITV competitions left 41,000 people with no chance of winning, Ofcom finds

Hopefuls entered with zero opportunity for success in ‘breach’ of TV rules

ITV ran competitions that left more than 40,000 people with no chance of winning, it has been revealed.

Ofcom has ruled that the channel “breached” broadcasting rules with contests featured on shows including Good Morning Britain, This Morning, Loose Women and Ant and Dec’s Saturday night Takeaway.

As a result, 41,252 entrants who entered via post were “excluded from the draw” without being notified between 2016 and 2019.

A spokeswoman for the TV watchdog said: “Our investigation found that people who entered these competitions by post were excluded from the draw, with no chance of winning.

"ITV failed to follow proper procedures and this led to a clear breach of our rules, which require all broadcast competitions to be conducted fairly."

The channel has responded by saying it “deeply regretted” the mistake, and blamed “human error” after the entrants’ names were left off competition spreadsheets.

It will now bring in rules to improve the integrity of postal entries, which were introduced in 2014, and will donate money to charity.

Julian Knight, the chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, commented: "It is beyond belief that one of our major broadcasters failed to follow proper procedures over a period of three years with more than 40,000 people duped into believing they had a chance of winning.

Ofcom instigated an investigation into the matter after an internal audit prompted ITV to report itself to the broadcast watchdog in August.

At the time, a spokesperson said: “The integrity of all viewer competitions run by ITV is a priority for us, therefore any related error is taken seriously.

“The six competitions amount to roughly one third of one per cent of our competitions since 2014, and a tiny fraction of total entries.”

Postal entries cost the price of a stamp.