The 2005 British Comedy Peoples Choice Award has been returned by presenters Ant and Dec following the result of an inquiry into the practices of ITV phone voting.

The Catherine Tate Show had in fact received more votes, it has been revealed, with the deception emerging following media watchdog Ofcom’s audit of ITV phone voting and subsequent £5.68m fine over its misuse of premium rate phone lines.

It is believed that singer Robbie Williams had been guaranteed the opportunity to present and award to Ant and Dec, with the report stating:

“Robbie Williams was invited to present an award. It was understood that he would be happy [to do so] if the recipients were Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.

“In order to ensure his attendance, this assurance was given.”

So if anything good can be taken from this, it is that Tate at last has the opportunity to receive the award (although whether she would want it now after all that has happened is a different matter).

The truth is, ITV have irreparably damaged the Comedy Awards to fulfill their own self interests.

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Tags: catherine tate, comedy awards

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 11:58 pm and is filed under Comedy Ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.