DUNCAN JAMES - DANCING ON ICE HIT BY TEXT FAULT

DANCING ON ICE HIT BY TEXT FAULT

A technical problem resulted in 11,500 text votes failing to be included in the final vote of ITV's Dancing on Ice final on Saturday night, it has emerged today.

Rugby player Kieran Bracken eventually won the competition ahead of fellow contestants actress Clare Buckfield and former Blue singer Duncan James.

ITV said this afternoon that the number of missing votes – cast by Vodafone customers – were not enough to have changed the result of the competition.

Although the votes were successfully delivered to the broadcaster they did not arrive until yesterday morning, Vodafone has confirmed.

"These votes represented only a small minority of votes cast by Vodafone customers. All other texts were successfully delivered," a statement for the mobile phone company said.

"The Vodafone customers who were affected received a message to tell them that the vote was too late and Vodafone UK will this week be automatically refunding those customers the cost of their text."

A statement from ITV added that the missing votes represented less than one per cent of all votes cast during the final and that it has been assured the problem was an "isolated" incident.

"With almost one and a half million votes cast on Saturday night, these late votes would not have changed the result of any part of the competition," the statement said.

Interactive elements of television shows have come under the spotlight recently after it emerged that viewers had been overcharged on a number of programmes.

At the beginning of March, ITV decided to suspend its premium interactive services following the overcharging of thousands of voters on the last series of X Factor.

Since then the phone-in sections of Dancing On Ice and This Morning have been cleared for a return to screens along with ITV Play following a review by accountants Deloite.

Television regulator Icstis is carrying out a review of all current and forthcoming interactive elements of programmes from all broadcasters. Channel 4's Richard and Judy and the BBC's Saturday Kitchen are forming part of the focus following a number of allegations about viewers being misled.