Close menu

Guidance: Audience Interactivity

Editorial Guidelines issues

This guidance note relates to the following Editorial Guidelines:

  • Code of Conduct on Competitions

See Editorial Policy Guidance Note: Code of Conduct on Competitions

  • Competitions, Votes and Integrity

See Editorial Guidelines Section 17: Competitions, Votes and Interactivity

  • External Relationships & Financing

See Editorial Guidelines Section 16 External Relationships & Financing

  • Politics, Public Policy & Polls

See Editorial Guidelines Section 10 Politics, Public Policy and Polls

Key points

  • The Interactive Technical Advice and Contracts Unit (ITACU) exists to provide advice on all technical aspects of running a competition, vote or award. They should be consulted at an early stage of any proposal. 
  • All competitions, votes and awards must comply with the Editorial Guidelines Section 17:
  • Competitions should always have a clear editorial purpose and offer a genuine test of skill, knowledge or judgement.
  • Winners of competitions should always be genuine. No member of the production team or anyone else should pose as a contestant or winner.
  • Competitions involving Premium Rate Telephony must be referred to a senior manager in your division and then referred to Editorial Policy and ITACU. Any proposal to set up an award must be referred to Editorial Policy and a Senior Manager at the planning stages.
  • An award should have clear, published rules, agreed with Programme Legal Advice.
  • Criteria for judging or nominations must be transparent, clear, fair and consistent.
  • Winners and runners-up of awards must have clear written guidance on their conduct once the result has been published.
  • When an award is being decided entirely or partly via a public vote then the voting mechanism used should be robust.
  • Special considerations apply when an award is run in partnership with an outside organisation.
  • Votes must not be set up to make a profit, except when authorised for a BBC charitable cause; any proposal for a vote should be referred to the relevant Controller or Senior Manager in the division for sign off.
  • Votes involving Premium Rate Telephony must be referred to a senior manager in your division and then referred to Editorial Policy and ITACU.
  • Under no circumstances can the result of a BBC vote be faked.

Guidance in full

Preface: The role of the Interactive Technical Advice and Contracts Unit (ITACU)

The BBC has a specialist unit to provide advice on all technical aspects of running a competition, vote or award and any other uses of Premium Rate Telephony. The Interactive Technical Advice and Contracts Unit (ITACU) oversees the delivery, management and contracting of all BBC’s Premium

Rate Telephony and other telephony relating to voting and competitions for all programmes, both independent and in-house, across all divisions and output.

The unit is based in BBC Design and Engineering but it serves the whole BBC. It advises on fixed line and mobile telephony, red button, and also will advise on online voting and competitions where there is also a telephony method of voting or entry. It is an essential part of ensuring that the BBC can continue to offer its audiences innovative interactivity which complies with new tougher industry regulations.

The ITACU team has specialist staff who have an extensive background in the telecoms industry and an in-depth knowledge of technical systems, contracts, service provision, mobile and data retention.

ITACU also provides business affairs and legal advice, with referrals where appropriate to Programme Legal Advice, Data Protection and Divisional Business Affairs teams.

ITACU will provide programme teams with terms and conditions for competitions and voting; ticket and prize giveaways; charity prize draws and auctions; carry out tenders and award contracts for service providers and verify their processes; select and contract third party verifiers; act as a repository for all relevant documentation associated with competitions, votes and awards which use telephony and all of the BBC’s use of Premium Rate telephony and facilitate regular audits of the BBC uses of all such interactivity.

The unit does not offer editorial advice: Editorial Policy should be consulted for all editorial queries; ITACU liaises closely with Editorial Policy.

Sign off by ITACU is a mandatory part of any proposal to use Premium Rate Telephony. Further details about ITACU can be found on BBC Gateway (Link only available to internal BBC users).

Last updated July 2019

Where next?