"Human error" denies C4 shows a chance at the Baftas

The results of this year’s British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards were nearly subverted by a mistake in the balloting process, according to marketing news magazine Media Week.  

A number of programmes were reportedly missing from the voting options – programmes that Channel 4 was depending upon for success at the Bafta’s.

Media Week reports that “human error” caused some of Channel 4′s star shows to be missed off the ballots for the first round of voting, which were sent out last week.

Members of the Academy were sent a list of nominated programmes on the 2nd of March, then asked to vote online to decide which programmes will go through to the final stage of the jury vote.

Unfortunately, the ballots were missing several of the shows that C4 were resting their hopes on, including ‘Alan Carr: Chatty Man’, ‘Chris Moyles Quiz Night’ and Derren Brown’s ‘The Events’.

Luckily for Channel 4 though, the Bafta organisation quickly discovered that “a number of omissions” could be spotted on the ballots. A spokesperson for Bafta said “The lists were immediately investigated, a human error discovered and amendments were made online that afternoon.”

Bafta says that it immediately contacted the 300 members who had already voted before the mistake was amended - some 7% of the total – and asked them if they would like to change their decision before the ballot closed on the 9th of March.  The group says that it is “satisfied that the entries originally omitted have been presented fairly to every voter in this first round and that neither the integrity of the voting process, nor the chances of any entrant have been affected in any way as a result of this error.”

Channel 4 has been sanguine about the affair; a spokesman for the channel is reported saying: “Channel 4 is satisfied that Bafta has taken the necessary steps to highlight the error to their members and rectify the problem.”

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