Radio prize was all Greek to listeners

Chris Tryhorn
guardian.co.uk, Monday October 8 2007 14.52 BST

Athens: BRMB listeners believed they were entering a competition to watch the Champions League final in the Greek capital

A Birmingham radio station has been criticised by media watchdog Ofcom for telling listeners they could win a trip to see the Champions League final in Athens - which turned out to be a Greek restaurant in the city.

Ofcom ruled that GCap-owned station BRMB had run a competition "in a manner designed to obscure the true nature of the prize" and found it guilty of a "serious breach" of its broadcasting code.

BRMB ran the competition in May this year in the week running up to the Champions League final, in which Liverpool lost to AC Milan 2-1.

The prize was described as a chance for 100 people to win "tickets to go to Athens and watch the Champions League final".

GCap said that at various points throughout the promotion clues had been given to listeners that the prize was not a trip to the Greek city of Athens.

At one point it was stated that the prize was for "Athens in Brum", while the restaurant's owner was interviewed and prize winners were advised to arrive at BRMB for 3pm on the day of the match.

These were clues that "should have alerted participants to the fact that something was amiss", GCap told Ofcom.

"GCap believed that the prize was described in good faith and while it regretted any misgivings the complainant may have as regards the given description of the prize, it wished to stress that at no time did it intend contemptuously to deceive its listeners," Ofcom said in its latest broadcast bulletin, published today.

In the report, Ofcom found that the BRMB presenter, Rick Vaughan, repeatedly gave the impression that the prize was an opportunity "to be there with me right across to Athens", also claiming, "this is our biggest prize so far".

The first "unambiguous" clue to the fact that the venue was in a restaurant in Birmingham, not Athens in Greece, was not given to listeners until May 22, seven days into the competition and the day before the match itself, Ofcom said.

BRMB's interview with the Athens restaurant manager, broadcast on May 21, was "so cryptic that listeners were still unclear about the actual venue", the regulator added.

"While Ofcom appreciates that the intention was to promote the competition in an engaging and entertaining way, we nevertheless concluded that it had been executed in a manner designed to obscure the true nature of the prize," the watchdog concluded.

The husband of one prize winner contacted Ofcom to complain. Gcap said 95 winners had "enjoyed the day's festivities", with only three individuals objecting to the location.

They had been refunded the cost of the text messages by which they had entered the competition, the company added.

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