Global Radio tightens up on competitions

Global Radio has overhauled its on-air competition policy after an error meant that thousands of entries for its Jingle Bell Ball contest on London's 95.8 Capital FM went uncounted. Listeners were invited to send in a text for a chance to win a pair of tickets for the live music event, held at the O2 Arena in December last year. Global Radio management later discovered that people who entered a number of times using the same mobile phone had only their first entry counted, no matter how many more texts they sent. The fault emerged after a listener who entered one of the draws about 40 times contacted the station "concerned that despite his high number of entries, he had not won", media regulator Ofcom said today. As a result, the regulator said, Global re-entered those texts which had been mistakenly excluded into additional draws. The broadcaster had since taken a number of steps to stop the problem happening again. A total of 51,093 people entered the 94 free prize draws that were affected by the fault, making a total of 196,430 entries. "Ofcom welcomed the broadcaster's action in uncovering the problem, establishing its cause and rearranging draws to rectify the matter," the regulator said today, clearing Global Radio of any breach of broadcasting rules. "However, Ofcom noted that a significant number of entrants were affected by the flawed draws, none of whom were made aware of the problems by the broadcaster. "Nonetheless, we also noted that the matter was rectified expeditiously while the competition was still in progress and that, importantly, no entrant was materially disadvantaged." Global Radio brought the issue to Ofcom's attention on 13 November last year, after the listener complaint was received on 7 November. Texts were charged at mobile phone network rates, with no additional revenue raised for the broadcaster. • To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. • If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".