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Buzz Asia warned over misleading competition

Buzz Asia has been cleared by Ofcom for a misleading premium rate competition.

The error occurred during the Drive Time show on Monday 5th July 2010 where the presenter misread the competition question.

During this show, listeners were offered the chance to win a pair of tickets to the Asian Fashion Awards. Entrants were required to telephone the studio on a premium rate number and answer a question that had been read out by the presenter. Calls cost �1 per minute to enter and the first person to give the correct answer was declared the winner.

The competition question was supposed to be “which country hosted the World Cup in 2006?” However, the presenter misread the question and instead asked listeners “which country hosted the World Cup in 2010?”.

After a caller answered “South Africa” and was deemed incorrect, the presenter repeated the question, making the same error. A second caller gave the same answer but was again, told by the presenter that this was incorrect.

Buzz Asia told Ofcom: “it and the presenter regretted the error and accepted that initially, listeners were misled about the competition.”

However, they pointed out that this was “a low key presenter competition to encourage interaction with the audience” and that “immediate action was taken to remedy the error” once it was realised.

Ofcom said: “it was clear to Ofcom that the presenter had not intended to mislead the audience and that her mistake was a genuine error. Ofcom also noted the swift remedial action taken by the broadcaster to ensure entrants whose answers were rejected unfairly could be compensated accordingly, and to apologise to the audience for the error.”