Producer urges ITV to broadcast Comedy Awards

The producer of the British Comedy Awards has written to ITV to ask them to re-consider their position in regards to not broadcasting the ceremony this year.

As things stand at present, the 2007 awards will not be televised after ITV opted out of showing the event and invoked its contract to stop other networks from picking up the rights. ITV's actions followed the discovery that, during the 2005 ceremony, some premium-rate phone line votes for the People's Choice Award were not counted because the final portion of the broadcast did not go out live (full details).

To date, The Comedy Awards is the only programme to have been cancelled by ITV in relation to the industry's phone-in scandals; other ITV brands implicated of much more serious editorial breaches continue to be shown. In previous years, the coverage of the awards has attracted huge audiences in the region of 10 million.

Now it has become clear that ITV does not intend to 'punish' any other programmes in relation to voting irregularities detailed in the recent Deloitte report, Unique Communications (which makes the British Comedy Awards through its subsidiary Michael Hurl Television), has written to ITV to complain about the situation.

Unique Communications argues that not airing this December's awards would be "inconsistent" and "inexplicable" given that Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway has been re-commissioned despite Deloitte finding very serious editorial issues with the show. In its letter, Unique states that the problem with the Comedy Awards was an isolated incident, and not similar to the repeated actions that Deloitte found in ITV Productions produced Saturday Night Takeaway, Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar.

The letter says: "This is not in anyway to condone or excuse the apparent error on the British Comedy Awards but to ensure it is placed in the context of, and relative to, the other findings of the Review and actions taken by ITV. Anything else creates unfounded suspicion and innuendo."

A number of fans of the Comedy Awards have already complained about ITV's treatment of this year's ceremony; pointing out that if ITV still has an issue with phone voting then removing the People's Choice Award, the only award to be voted for by the public, should surely solve the issue?

It remains to be seen whether the broadcaster will change its mind. The show, hosted by Jonathan Ross, will go ahead on December 5th regardless of whether or not TV cameras are present.

Viewers can contact ITV to let them know their opinions via dutyoffice@itv.com