IRISH-BACKED UK commercial radio station GCap Media has been fined a record £1.1 million by regulator Ofcom for "unfair conduct" in a listener phone-in competition.
GCap was taken over recently by Global Radio in a £375 million deal. Global is backed by a number of Irish investors, including John Magnier, JP McManus, Denis Brosnan and Dermot Desmond.
The breaches of the broadcasting code took place in January and February 2007 and pre-dated the takeover by Global. Nevertheless, the fine will dent the company's profits at a time when it is already experiencing difficulties in a soft advertising environment.
In a statement, the regulator said: "Ofcom's investigation found that on a number of occasions, programme makers deliberately put to air text entrants with incorrect answers in order to prevent the prize from being won too soon. As a result, those listeners who had paid to enter the competition on these occasions had no chance of winning."
Ofcom fined 30 channels in GCap's One Network of stations. Each station has also been directed to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on two separate occasions. In a statement, GCap said: "The competition ran over 16 months ago. Since then, GCap has undergone two senior management changes and a change of ownership, now being wholly-owned by Global Radio."
It said the ruling was being taken "extremely seriously" by its current owners. "To that end, the new management are already putting in place measures to build on the already improved controls implemented at GCap and the company has not run premium rate competitions of this kind for the last 12 months."
GCap owns Capital Radio and Classic FM. Global also owns Chrysalis Radio and is the UK's biggest commercial radio player.
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