Were TV Awards fixed in ITV’s favour?

Winning a national television award can mean a lot for a commercial channel such as ITV, especially when the high profile win would attract more advertisers, which are the life blood of the industry.

The BBC is accusing ITV of having a hand in fixing the outcome of the National Television Awards.

This accusation mainly concerns the battle of the soaps, when Eastenders took on Coronation Street and lost.

The BBC claims that during the event ITV aired a three minute show reel to celebrate Coronation Street’s fiftieth anniversary, but there was no such show reel for Eastenders which was also celebrating a milestone – twenty five years on air!

Viewers were encouraged to vote for their favourite soap and the BBC is considering taking the complaint to the regulator Ofcom.