ITV breached Ofcom competition rules over postal votes

lizd31

I always used to do the free entry route & actually won 3 ITV comps within a couple of years. Not huge comps, the biggest being £5000 but it did go to show that the free entry route entries were being counted but I've never won since doing the postal entries

lizd31

I've  emailed the CEO saying how disappointed I am about this news. I mentioned that I won 3 times with the free online entries but have never had a win with postal entries. I suggested that to make it fair for all they stop postal entries & just do online entries but at a reduced rate as postal charges are very expensive but nowhere near as expensive as the £2 online entry costs. I suggested a reduced online entry rate of £1 to make it fair for all. She may not take any notice but if we all email her suggesting the same thing maybe, just maybe, she will take notice & reduce online entry costs

carolyn.mccall@itv.com

smitchy73

Bridger12 said:

Terrible. I only started comping early this year and was sending in postcards for the itv comps. A few months ago I have started online entries which cost £2 with itv. Postage stamps are expensive these days, itv needs to refund for the postal entries 

It shouldn't affect you then, it was for competitions between I think 2016 and 2019.

mjm3346

lizd31 said:

I've  emailed the CEO saying how disappointed I am about this news. I mentioned that I won 3 times with the free online entries but have never had a win with postal entries. I suggested that to make it fair for all they stop postal entries & just do online entries but at a reduced rate as postal charges are very expensive but nowhere near as expensive as the £2 online entry costs. I suggested a reduced online entry rate of £1 to make it fair for all. She may not take any notice but if we all email her suggesting the same thing maybe, just maybe, she will take notice & reduce online entry costs

carolyn.mccall@itv.com

The competitions are very much a money maker for ITV  (see their annual reports) that's why more entries per person are allowed, most of them are £2 a pop, many are spread over several shows and weeks and offering bigger prizes which attract more entrants - anything that would reduce that profit is unlikely to be welcomed - When free online entry was dropped people either switched to paying, stopped entering altogether or entered by post - and I bet postal entries are the smallest of those 3 groups and even the people who do enter by post do not submit as many entries per person as they did with free online entries.

"A significant portion of our Direct to Consumer revenues comes from competitions. The majority of our competitions have performed well across the schedule, benefiting from the investment in the competition portal which has been rebranded to ITV Win"

Management of competitions is  
Rufus Radcliffe Chief Marketing Officer and Director of Direct to Consumer Appointed: April 2017 Experience: Rufus joined ITV as Group Marketing and Research Director in 2011. He was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer and appointed to the Management Board in 2017. In 2019 he took additional responsibility for the Direct to Consumer division. He has responsibility for brand and marketing, digital products including the ITV Hub, the Direct to Consumer business (which includes ITV Hub+, gaming, live events, merchandise and competitions) and the development of ITV’s data insight strategy. Before joining ITV, Rufus spent ten years at Channel 4, and prior to that held various positions at McCann Erickson and JWT.

bmbm365

As a good will gesture they can send everyone who entered via post at them times some envelopes and stamps, i'd be more than happy with that! I entered every comp during that time. 1 book of 2nd class stamps and 100 cheap quality envelopes. Yup that would do nice

mjm3346

bmbm365 said:

As a good will gesture they can send everyone who entered via post at them times some envelopes and stamps, i'd be more than happy with that! I entered every comp during that time. 1 book of 2nd class stamps and 100 cheap quality envelopes. Yup that would do nice

Less than 1% of competitions were affected so less than 1% of your entries are likely to be involved and ITV make no money out of the free postal entry route so if they refund the full amount they made that's "nothing"   (They also gain nothing from omitting the entries, it makes no difference to them if a free or paid entry wins)

kerrazoo

mjm3346 said:

bmbm365 said:

As a good will gesture they can send everyone who entered via post at them times some envelopes and stamps, i'd be more than happy with that! I entered every comp during that time. 1 book of 2nd class stamps and 100 cheap quality envelopes. Yup that would do nice

Less than 1% of competitions were affected so less than 1% of your entries are likely to be involved and ITV make no money out of the free postal entry route so if they refund the full amount they made that's "nothing"   (They also gain nothing from omitting the entries, it makes no difference to them if a free or paid entry wins)

yeah apart from not having to apply for a full lottery licence for each of their competitions at enormous expense. The free postal entry is a way of getting round the legislation... but if you ignore that, you are running a paid for lottery and need to comply with that legislation.

mjm3346

kerrazoo said:

mjm3346 said:

  (They also gain nothing from omitting the entries, it makes no difference to them if a free or paid entry wins)

yeah apart from not having to apply for a full lottery licence for each of their competitions at enormous expense. The free postal entry is a way of getting round the legislation... but if you ignore that, you are running a paid for lottery and need to comply with that legislation.

The Free entry route is used by almost every "pay to enter" competition that doesn't go the skill route - they would not apply for a lottery licence regardless of cost as they (like almost everyone else running for profit) would not be entitled to one.

Azzer007

mjm3346 said:

"Shame to hear that those who had been taking the free entry route had no chance"

Less then 1% of competitions were impacted

Yes, and in those competitions that were affected, the people who took the free entry route had no chance, which is why I said, that it's a shame to hear about those. I didn't think I had to quantify my sympathy with a dismissive "oh but the competitions that weren't rigged, were fine" :P

mjm3346

Azzer007 said:

mjm3346 said:

"Shame to hear that those who had been taking the free entry route had no chance"

Less then 1% of competitions were impacted

Yes, and in those competitions that were affected, the people who took the free entry route had no chance, which is why I said, that it's a shame to hear about those. I didn't think I had to quantify my sympathy with a dismissive "oh but the competitions that weren't rigged, were fine" :P

Not sure what is difficult to understand about agreeing that it was a  "Shame to hear that those who had been taking the free entry route had no chance" and then giving some perspective  "Less then 1% of competitions were impacted"

There is no suggestion that the competitions were rigged   -  a really really tiny fraction of the total entries were missed out - there is nothing to indicate the competitions were rigged so some supporting evidence would be really good.

(about 41,000 entries over 4 years when they get over 1,000,000 entries a week)