The BBC is to begin reintroducing premium rate phone calls to its programmes from next month, it was announced today. Its decision follows a suspension last year after revelations about misuse of premium rate phone calls and derived competitions which dented public trust in the institution.
From this week all premium rate phone calls will be charged at a 15p capped rate, apart from when the programme is directly related to a charity appeal. Previously some programmes like Strictly Come Dancing had raise the price of a call for charitable purposes but this will now be discontinued for the sake of clarity. “I do understand that this will mean that slightly less money will go to the charities as a result of the new policy, but we’re already talking to them about other ways of supporting their work,” director general Mark Thompson said.
The first competitions seeing a return to premium rate phone calls will be ‘goal of the month’ on BBC1′s Match of the Day programme and ‘pop master’ on BBC Radio 2′s The Ken Bruce Show. So far 45 per cent of applicable BBC staff have attended its mandatory training course on safeguarding trust and Mr Thompson believes its new code of practice will slowly help win back its audience. “The BBC has followed a policy of confronting problems, disclosing everything and giving the public a clear explanation of what we are doing to get things right,” he added. “Early indications are that our audiences approve of what we’ve done. After an understandable dip, our ratings for trust are recovering.”