Newcastle-born TV presenters Ant and Dec have decided to return a comedy prize that they were given at the 2005 British Comedy Awards, because an independent report revealed that they had not actually won.
The independent report into the awards indicated that the Catherine Tate Show collected more public votes for the People's Choice Award. However, it is thought that pop star Robbie Williams, who was presenting the award, had been assured that his friends Ant and Dec were the winners of the prize.
News of the 2005 deception emerged as ITV was investigated by media watchdog Ofcom over its abuse of premium rate phone lines. Ofcom fined ITV £5.68 million for their role in the scandal.
ITV revealed information about this particular incident in a statement that was drafted in response to their massive fine. The statement revealed that the channel had asked an independent legal firm, Olswang, to conduct an investigation into the 2005 comedy awards after a number of allegations of irregularities.
The Olswang investigation found that the Catherine Tate show was the real winner of the People's Choice Award, but they found insufficient evidence to indicate why the award had been wrongly awarded to Ant and Dec for their Saturday Night Takeaway show. However, the report suggested that the prize was wrongly awarded as a result of the guest host. It read: “Robbie Williams was invited to present an award. It was understood that he would be happy [to present the award] if the recipients were Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. In order to ensure his attendance, this assurance was given.”
Despite this, the report said that it could not prove that any of those involved in this scandal were aware of it. It read: “There is no suggestion that Robbie Williams, Anthony McPartlin or Declan Donnelly were aware of any of these issues.” The report suggested that awards bosses had told Williams that his friends had won the prize after the jury had decided the winners of the night’s main awards and “the only award still to be decided was the People's Choice award.”
ITV has passed the findings of the Olswang enquiry to Ofcom, which is in the process of carrying out their own investigation into ITV’s practices. ITV released a statement following the report, which said that they were “embarrassed and deeply apologetic”, as well as being frustrated that the Olswang report into their activities had managed to add “nothing of material significance to our original internal inquiry.”
Ant and Dec have won the British Comedy Awards’ People's Choice prize three times and are said to be “absolutely appalled” by the scandal. While last year's comedy awards ceremony wasn’t televised, the award’s production company, Michael Hurll Television, told BBC reporters that the 2008 show was “in the schedule.”
Source:
BBC