ITV has been fined a record £5.67 million by Ofcom for abusing premium rate phone services in viewer competitions.

The media regulator said the penalty "reflects not only the seriousness of ITV's failures but also their repeated nature".

The regulator investigated after a report found "serious editorial issues" within three ITV programmes - Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, Ant and Dec's Gameshow Marathon and Soapstar Superstar.

The penalty dwarfs the previous record £2 million GMTV received, which is 75 per cent owned by ITV. GMTV charged viewers up to £40 million to enter competitions they had no chance of winning.

ITV could have been fined up to £70 million - 5 per cent of its commercial revenue. The broadcaster made £7.8 million from uncounted votes and some 10 million telephone calls were affected.

It also emerged that organisers of the British Comedy Awards promised Robbie Williams that he could present an award to Ant and Dec to guarantee the former Take That star's attendance, before the duo were wrongly given a gong voted for by the public.

Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway was announced as the winner of the People's Choice Award and the trophy was presented by Williams, despite The Catherine Tate Show, collecting the most public votes.

A report by Olswang, who conducted an independent investigation, said it cannot be concluded from these events that this was the reason why the wrong winner of the People's Choice Award was announced and stated that there is no suggestion that Williams or Ant and Dec were aware of "any of these issues".

Deloitte found that in Saturday Night Takeaway, competition entrants for the Jiggy Bank competition were not chosen at random but selected if they lived within an hour of a chosen location and would make good TV.

In Gameshow Marathon, the winner of the Prize Mountain was also not chosen at random, but selected if researchers thought they sounded "lively" and would be more entertaining on screen.

In Soapstar Superstar, votes for celebrities to be put up for eviction were ignored in favour of the production team's choice.

Despite being credited as executive producers on Saturday Night Takeaway and Gameshow Marathon, Ant and Dec said they had not been aware of the phone-in scandals.

Ofcom said it had uncovered "institutionalised failure within ITV" and programme-makers showed "total disregard" for their own terms and conditions and broadcasting codes.

n a statement, ITV chairman Michael Grade said: "Ofcom's announcement today is an appropriate moment to restate ITV's unreserved apology to the public for breaches that took place between 2003 and January 2007. We welcome Ofcom's recognition of the 'wide ranging and timely' steps voluntarily undertaken by ITV.

"ITV has gone further than any other broadcaster in instigating an independent, systematic and comprehensive investigation into all allegations around premium rate services in its programmes. We believe that Ofcom's scrutiny of the evidence we provided will reassure viewers and rebuild the public's trust in ITV.

"Since the publication of Deloitte's findings, ITV has totally re-engineered its editorial, compliance and training procedures to safeguard against any recurrence of such breaches of trust.

"We have also taken a number of disciplinary measures. Anyone working with or for ITV going forward is in no doubt of the standards expected and the consequences if they fall short."

ITV said despite its £7.8 million reimbursement process for viewers, with any balance of that sum not claimed by individuals to go to charity, just 2,625 completed claims forms have been received, with reimbursements totalling £9,718.06 paid out.

A further 80 claims, with a potential value of £356.03, are currently being processed.

In December last year, Channel 4 was fined £1.5 million for misconduct involving phone-in competitions on shows Richard And Judy and Deal Or No Deal.

© Independent Television News Limited 2008. All rights reserved.