Television broadcasters have been attacked by the industry’s watchdog for a “systemic failure” in the way they operate their premium-rate phone services.

An Ofcom inquiry, after a series of call-in scandals, found that broadcasters were "in denial” about their responsibility to their viewers.

A £100 million industry in premium-rate phone-in votes and quizzes had created a culture of greed. The millions raised “proved a goldmine and it produced a gold rush,” the report found.

Broadcasters must develop a fairer and more competitive system for “participation TV”. A licence to broadcast should now include “consumer protection” obligations and phone-in votes must be subject to independent audits.

Ofcom asked Richard Ayre, a former senior BBC news executive, to conduct an inquiry after a series of scandals engulfing programmes ranging from Richard & Judy, GMTV and Blue Peter. Twenty programmes have come under investigation.

Mr Ayre said: “Phoning a TV show isn’t like ordering pizza. When you put the phone down nothing arrives: you just have to trust that your call was counted.

“If broadcasters want audiences to go on spending millions calling in, they need to show they take consumer protection as seriously as programme content.”

In a damning report, Mr Ayre found that “compliance failures were systemic” and that “revenue generation was a major driver in the growth of premium-rate services”.

Some broadcasters “appeared to be in denial about their responsibilities to ensure programmes delivered on the transactions they offered to viewers”.

He wrote: “When votes went astray or winners could not be found in time the producers too often interpreted the audience interest as being a requirement to make it appear to viewers as though everything was working normally.”

He found evidence that “intense pressure” was “applied by broadcasters upon producers, and by both upon service providers, to maximise revenues — and that meant maximising calls”.

For years, compliance failures had been disguised by an ineffective regulatory regime. There was a “lack of transparency” and “clarity about responsibilities” through the supply chain of telecoms operators, producers and broadcasters.

Individual mistakes — whether the “result of technical failure, misjudgment, negligence or deliberate deceit” — too often went unnoticed or unreported and sometimes ignored.

Even during his inquiry, Mr Ayre was “surprised that the BBC launched a peak-time series, Any Dream Will Do, in which viewers were informed of premium-rate numbers to call long before the lines would register their votes.”

During each programme there was a period when the lines were “frozen”. Callers were warned that if they called in they would be charged but their votes would not be counted.

Mr Ayre also examined complaints over obscure answers given to phone-in quiz questions. He concluded that the “methodology used to produce answers should be adequately explained” on air. There must also be clearer guidance on screen to the exact cost of a call from mobile phones to programmes.

Mr Ayre identified a collapse in consumer confidence in participation TV since the scandals, which may not be reversed. He cautioned that the Gambling Commission “seems set on declaring most broadcast quizzes and competitions illegal lotteries”.

Ofcom said it was minded to accept most of the recommendations, including new rules for radio quizzes. A number of investigations are still ongoing.

Ed Richards, the Ofcom chief executive, said: “This inquiry shows the extent to which there has been a systemic failure of compliance.

“Ofcom takes these issues extremely seriously and will continue to take action against broadcasters found to break the rules in this area.”

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