Granada escapes fine over Sooty plug

Sooty, the glove puppet, has been found guilty of plugging his own videos on the show Sooty and Co by the Independent Television Commission.

The breach of the ITC's code on product placement, detailed in a report today, is another blow to Granada Television. The commission has upheld a complaint that "undue prominence" was given to Sooty videos on a toy shop set in some editions of the children's series last October and November.

Another recent breach of the code, by the live coffee-time show This Morning, resulted in Granada being given an unprecedented £500,000 fine. After warnings for seven previous lapses, the ITC took action when the programme ran a competition with Safeway and She magazine despite rules barring such sponsorship.

Because Sooty's indiscretion predates the fine, the commission has decided not to act, according to its monthly complaints review.

Granada is also being investigated by the ITC for a potentially biased item on This Morning about Private Lee Clegg, the British soldier jailed for murder while patrolling in Northen Ireland. The commission is considering whether a "phone-in petition", in which viewers were invited to telephone only if they supported the campaign to release Private Clegg, breaks its codes on objectivity.