ITV’s top executive bonuses were linked to the rapid growth of the controversial phone-ins, which in the peak year of 2006 contributed one pound in every six of operating profit made by the commercial broadcaster.

The disclosure comes as the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) confirmed that it was reviewing evidence into the £34 million competition scandal at GMTV, to see if police should open a formal inquiry.

One of ITV’s dozen top executives received an element of their bonus based explicitly on phone-in revenue, but all payouts for senior personnel depended on hitting profit targets – in which cash from ITV and GMTV phone-ins contributed an estimated £44 million of income.

Former ITV insiders also told The Times that in 2005 the broadcaster, then run by Charles Allen, held discussions about introducing a bonus target for all top staff based explicitly on phone-in revenues, to help make people who commissioned and made ITV programmes care about phone-ins. But this was not introduced.

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BACKGROUND

• BBC fined £50,000 for Blue Peter scandal

• BBC boss and the Queen’s ‘huff’

• Time to hang up on TV phone-ins

• GMTV cheated 25m of its phone-in callers

Earlier this week ITV also admitted that it would refund viewers £7.8 million after Deloitte, the accountancy firm, found problems with a series of high-profile programmes, including Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway. Those programmes may also be investigated by the SFO, although in this instance the police want to wait for Ofcom, the communications regulator, to examine the disclosures.

ITV’s key executives are typically eligible for an annual bonus amounting to one-and-half times basic salary, with sums ranging from £150,000 to the £1 million paid to the former chief executive. Key divisional heads, such as Simon Shaps, the director of television, and Jeff Henry, who ran all the company’s phone-ins, earn an estimated £400,000 basic.

The bonus pool could easily be £4 million – with the profit element likely to be a significant part of that, although the exact details of how ITV’s bonus scheme works are not public. Around 85 per cent of the bonus payout relates to company-wide measures.

ITV indicated that it did not believe that a significant part of any bonus payout was related to revenue generated irregularly, and that no executive should hand back any money. The £7.8 million uncovered this week amounted to 2.9 per cent of reported operating profit, and on measures used in the bonus scheme could have amounted to 0.1 per cent of overall pay.

However, without pushing ahead with phone-ins, ITV would have suffered more in 2006, a year of crisis at the company.

It is believed to be the first time that the SFO has looked into a case involving a major broadcaster, which could eventually draw in the presenters Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly – Ant and Dec – who are listed as executive producers on their shows. The duo, who signed a £30 million, three-year deal with ITV, said that they were unaware of the competition rigging, which generated £6.3 million from viewers.

An SFO spokeswoman said: “Following media reports and some complaints received from the general public about GMTV’s use of premium-rate telephone services, we are in touch with Ofcom although no SFO investigation is under way. Furthermore, the SFO will await the outcome of Ofcom’s investigation into ITV’s use of premium-rate telephone services as highlighted in the Deloitte report published yesterday.”

Over a period of nearly four years, GMTV viewers were encouraged to call premium-rate phone lines even though competition winners had already been selected earlier in the programme. Of 62 million entries received between May 2003 and April 2007, an estimated 25 million were not counted. In a report published last month, Ofcom found GMTV guilty of “gross negligence” and the “widespread and systematic deception of millions of viewers”. The £2 million fine was the largest imposed by Ofcom.

MPs believe that Michael Grade’s refusal to dismiss anyone is unsustainable. ITV is poised for further embarrassment when Olswang, a legal firm, delivers a report into a scandal at the 2005 British Comedy Awards. Viewers were encouraged to vote during a “live” show for half an hour after the trophy was handed over.

John Whittingdale MP, chairman of the Commons Media select committee said: “I think this is fraud. At the least, I would expect Ofcom to levy a fine reflecting the gravity of the offence. Most people would expect someone senior to lose their job.”

Jeremy Hunt, the shadow Culture spokesman, called for a tightening of Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code requiring broadcasters to run fair competitions.

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