ITV was today fined a record £5.7 million for repeatedly misleading viewers over the conduct of phone-ins on flagship programmes ranging from Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar.

The fine was levied by the regulator Ofcom, which said that ITV was guilty of an "institutionalised failure" to regulate its phone-ins properly, and that the broadcaster "totally disregarded" their own published terms and conditions by allowing viewers to enter phone-in competitions that they had little or no chance of winning.

The communications regulator said that ITV had committed some of the most serious breaches of the broadcasting code.

Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, executive produced by the Geordie duo, was fined £3 million for repeated breaches over a three-year period to 2006, in which winners of competitions were selected before phone lines were closed, and on the basis of how they looked and where they lived, rather than randomly.

A similar selection of winners on the basis of their "suitability to be on screen" on Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon in autumn 2005 resulted in a fine of £1.2 million.

ITV's in-house production, Soapstar Superstar, was also fined £1.2 million for repeatedly overriding the choice of songs voted for by viewers in January 2007, while a further smaller fine was levied on ITV2+1, for failing to tell viewers of the time delayed channel that votes had actually closed.

Michael Grade, the executive chairman of ITV, said: “Ofcom’s announcement today is an appropriate moment to restate ITV’s unreserved apology to the public for breaches that took place between 2003 and January 2007."

The fine exceeds the £2 million paid by its breakfast show GMTV last year, over similar breaches.

ITV has already agreed to pay £7.8 million in compensation for viewers, in a scandal that it largely unearthed through enquiries initiated by Mr Grade and handled by auditors Deloitte shortly after he took over at the beginning of last year.

The communications regulator said today: "The fine, which is by far the highest imposed by Ofcom or any of the previous regulators, reflects not only the seriousness of ITV's failures but also their repeated nature."

Ed Richards, chief executive at Ofcom, said: "This was a thorough set of investigations which uncovered institutionalised failure within ITV that enabled the broadcaster to make money from misconduct on mass audience programmes.

"The industry can be in no doubt how seriously Ofcom takes the issue of audience trust. Our new licence conditions requiring broadcasters, who operate in this area, to conduct third party audits will ensure that consumers are protected”.

Ofcom is conducting a number of ongoing investigations, which it described as "well-advanced". These include the British Comedy Awards in 2004 and 2005 which was broadcast on ITV1, the Secret Sound competition broadcast on a number of GCap radio stations, and a number of programmes on BBC radio and television.

Ofcom said the results of thee investigations will be published in the coming weeks.

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