Blue Peter phone-in received 14,000 calls
John PlunkettWednesday March 14, 2007
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Nearly 14,000 calls were made to the Blue Peter phone-in competition that faked the winner after the phone lines failed, it has been revealed.
A technical error meant that none of the people who phoned the BBC1 children's programme were in with a chance of winning the "guess whose shoes" competition.
Producers asked a girl who was visiting the Blue Peter studio to phone the programme with the correct answer, and she was announced on air as the competition winner.
The girl was a "Blue Peter Team Player" on a visit to the BBC studio after winning a separate, unrelated competition.
In a lengthy statement on the Blue Peter website, the BBC said the girl "really knew the answer" but had an unfair advantage because she was in the studio at the time of the competition.
It said the use of a "stand-in" was a "serious error of judgment made by a junior member of staff", and said it had "absolutely not" fixed any other Blue Peter competitions.
Part of the Blue Peter appeal in aid of Unicef, viewers were shown a mystery celebrity's shoes along with a visual clue and asked to say who they belonged to - Bradley from EastEnders, Boyd from Neighbours, or Sam from Casualty.
With 3.5p of the 10p call going to Unicef, it raised £450.52 for the children's charity. Another £727.75 went to Cable & Wireless for the use of the phone-lines, and £207.93 to Telecom Express, which ran the competition and has donated its share to the appeal.
The "whose shoes" competition was intended to run once a week for six weeks. The winner was offered the choice of the top 10 toys for Christmas.
The BBC said the technical breakdown was due to an "unavoidable technical difficulty. It was created by our need to handle all the calls very quickly to find a winner before the end of the programme.
"All the competition calls did actually get through. The part of the technology that broke was the retrieval system allowing our production team to make a selection from the calls. We just couldn't make a fair draw in time to show the real winner during the programme.
"This competition was a 'phone-in' and the use of a stand-in was due to the wrong decision being [made] after a technical issue during a live transmission. This decision was made under extreme pressure but there was never any intention to run an unfair competition or take money under false pretences.
"As Blue Peter is a live transmission sometimes problems do arise however we have run many competitions over Blue Peter's 49 years and we can assure you that this error has never happened before and will never happen again. Due to the added pressure of a live revealing of the 'Whose Shoes' winner a snap decision was made and Blue Peter is truly sorry that this was unfair to other children who had entered."
Blue Peters phone lines went down and 14000 kids rang in trying to win a competiton 'guess whose shoes'. therefore Blue peter tried to cover it up and got a girl from the studio to ring up and become the competition winner. i think this is wrong and the people should be refunded there money or get a free chance at a next competition. apartently most of the money went to charity so i suppose it was okay. overall they promised this will never happen again.
MediaGuardian.co.uk
Nearly 14,000 calls were made to the Blue Peter phone-in competition that faked the winner after the phone lines failed, it has been revealed.
A technical error meant that none of the people who phoned the BBC1 children's programme were in with a chance of winning the "guess whose shoes" competition.
Producers asked a girl who was visiting the Blue Peter studio to phone the programme with the correct answer, and she was announced on air as the competition winner.
The girl was a "Blue Peter Team Player" on a visit to the BBC studio after winning a separate, unrelated competition.
In a lengthy statement on the Blue Peter website, the BBC said the girl "really knew the answer" but had an unfair advantage because she was in the studio at the time of the competition.
It said the use of a "stand-in" was a "serious error of judgment made by a junior member of staff", and said it had "absolutely not" fixed any other Blue Peter competitions.
Part of the Blue Peter appeal in aid of Unicef, viewers were shown a mystery celebrity's shoes along with a visual clue and asked to say who they belonged to - Bradley from EastEnders, Boyd from Neighbours, or Sam from Casualty.
With 3.5p of the 10p call going to Unicef, it raised £450.52 for the children's charity. Another £727.75 went to Cable & Wireless for the use of the phone-lines, and £207.93 to Telecom Express, which ran the competition and has donated its share to the appeal.
The "whose shoes" competition was intended to run once a week for six weeks. The winner was offered the choice of the top 10 toys for Christmas.
The BBC said the technical breakdown was due to an "unavoidable technical difficulty. It was created by our need to handle all the calls very quickly to find a winner before the end of the programme.
"All the competition calls did actually get through. The part of the technology that broke was the retrieval system allowing our production team to make a selection from the calls. We just couldn't make a fair draw in time to show the real winner during the programme.
"This competition was a 'phone-in' and the use of a stand-in was due to the wrong decision being [made] after a technical issue during a live transmission. This decision was made under extreme pressure but there was never any intention to run an unfair competition or take money under false pretences.
"As Blue Peter is a live transmission sometimes problems do arise however we have run many competitions over Blue Peter's 49 years and we can assure you that this error has never happened before and will never happen again. Due to the added pressure of a live revealing of the 'Whose Shoes' winner a snap decision was made and Blue Peter is truly sorry that this was unfair to other children who had entered."
Blue Peters phone lines went down and 14000 kids rang in trying to win a competiton 'guess whose shoes'. therefore Blue peter tried to cover it up and got a girl from the studio to ring up and become the competition winner. i think this is wrong and the people should be refunded there money or get a free chance at a next competition. apartently most of the money went to charity so i suppose it was okay. overall they promised this will never happen again.
posted by Rishi at 6:23 PM
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