GMTV boss says sorry over phone row

Paul Corley said on Tuesday morning's show: "I'd just like to apologise for everything that's gone on. The fact is it appears two or three people at this telecoms company were taking it upon themselves to do this even without the knowledge of the management. If we had known it would have stopped immediately."

BBC1's Panorama programme claimed on Monday night that some callers and texters to GMTV stood no chance of winning because shortlists of potential winners were finalised "long before" phone lines closed.

GMTV revealed on Monday it had discovered "irregularities" in the system provided for it by telephone company Opera Interactive Technology, terminated its contract with the firm and apologised to viewers. It added that it was determined to reimburse viewers who had lost out by entering the quizzes and its competitions were suspended until further notice.

Mr Corley said he hoped to bring back the show's popular competition but would not do so until he could be certain viewers would get the chance they were paying for. He said one of the reasons the show had chosen Opera to run its competitions was because of its advanced technology.

"They put together a team we had trust in," he said. He claimed the firm did keep records of competitions and he hoped it would be possible to reimburse any viewers who had paid to enter a competition but not been put into the draw.

Mr Corley described Panorama's estimate that as much as £40 million had been fraudulently charged as "a serious exaggeration" but added that he would be annoyed if viewers had been misled into spending even £1.

Meanwhile, it emerged that telephone company Opera Interactive Technology has been fined on 20 occasions over the past two years for breaching the industry code. Premium rate services regulator Icstis has imposed over £200,000 of penalties.

Opera apologised "unreservedly" to GMTV and the breakfast show's competition entrants, after its own investigation showed "certain irregularities" in its internal processes.

The company said it had put new systems in place to ensure the problems would never happen again and promised to work with GMTV and regulators to compensate those who had lost out.