ITV stars Ant and Dec last night made an unprecedented apology over rigged phone-in votes in a competition on their programme, and announced that they would donate profits from their next series of Saturday Night Takeaway to charity.

In a statement, Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly said: ‘It is important to us that people understand that none of the shows highlighted in the findings of ITV’s independent review were made by our production company, Gallowgate, and that there was no financial benefit to us from the phone lines within those shows.

‘Our roles as executive producers are purely creative ones. We are not involved in running the phone lines, the logistics of the competitions or selecting winners.

‘We are deeply upset about what the review uncovered. However, we welcome the full disclosure of these problems, not least because we can be sure that our viewers have the opportunity to get their money back.’

They had spoken to ITV chairman Michael Grade about the review’s findings and were confident that ITV would not allow the problems to be repeated.

Grade is under increasing pressure this weekend to force the resignations of those involved in the systematic rigging of phone-in programmes. He said he would have resigned if he had been chief executive of ITV when the rigging took place. But, unlike Peter Fincham, who resigned as Controller of BBC1 after a row over a documentary about the Queen, no one at ITV has left.

The Observer can reveal that the heads of Britain’s biggest broadcasters met last month to discuss the crisis. BBC director-general Mark Thompson, Grade, Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan and Jane Lighting, his opposite number at Five, met at Broadcasting House on 26 September.

The summit was called to discuss how to restore public trust in broadcasting and hammer out a set of best practices. Sources say they could lead to the introduction of an industry-wide code of conduct.

Last week, an independent report by auditor Deloitte found that several ITV shows, including The X Factor, failed to count viewers’ votes cast after lines had closed. It also found that production staff at Saturday Night Takeaway, which was heavily criticised by Deloitte, routinely ignored poll results on editorial grounds. The company has promised to reimburse viewers and said the affair is likely to cost it 18m.

At last month’s meeting, how to handle the fall-out from recent scandals was also raised. ‘There was a feeling that the “drip, drip” of revelations was having a negative effect and we wanted to see if there was anything we could do to mitigate that,’ said one source. He emphasised there was no attempt to co-ordinate last week’s announcements. Grade reacted angrily to an allegation by Liberal Democrat spokesman Don Foster that the decision to publish Deloitte’s report on Thursday, when the BBC revealed 2,500 job losses, was an ‘attempt to bury bad news’.

News of the meeting comes as the Serious Fraud Office confirmed it had asked industry regulator Ofcom to hand over documents relating to its investigation into GMTV, the breakfast TV franchisee, after receiving complaints from the public.

GMTV, which is 75 per cent owned by ITV, was fined a record 2m by Ofcom this year after admitting that millions of viewers taking part in phone-in competitions entered after lines had closed.

With China’s car market up 24% so far this year, you’d think these would be fat times for auto manufacturers. But many of the mainland’s carmakers are hurting. Sales are falling far short of lofty targets they had set for the year, driving prices down by as much as 15% and squeezing margins. The price wars “exert a lot of pressure on car companies,” says Lawrence Ang, executive director of Geely Automotive, which has cut its production target for the year from 240,000 cars to 190,000. “Margins were not very high, and raw materials prices are up. So it’s very difficult to make that all up by just cutting costs.”

It’s not only domestic brands that are feeling the pain. General Motors’ ( ) Shanghai operation that turns out Buicks and Chevrolets is set to finish the year 5% below its production targets, while Guangzhou Honda (which makes Accord sedans and Fit compacts) is headed for an 18% shortfall, Citigroup ( ) analyst Charles Cheung estimates. A Peugeot joint venture is 21% below target; South Korea’s Hyundai Motor is down 29%. “The 2007 car market has disappointed the majority of car assemblers in China,” Cheung wrote in an Oct. 5 report.

The biggest problems are in small cars. A year ago, that segment seemed to offer the best prospects for growth as lower-income buyers started flocking to showrooms. But as it turns out, there are fewer customers at the bottom end of the market than automakers had anticipated. So sales of microcars—with engines smaller than 1 liter—increased just 7% through August. Subcompacts (a bit bigger than micros) are up by only 4%, says market researcher J.D. Power & Associates ( ). And as more manufacturers cut prices, customers are holding off buying. “I want to wait and see how low the price goes,” says Wang Jin, a 25-year-old Beijing native eyeballing a 1.6 liter Peugeot 307. It’s now selling for $16,000, but he hopes to bag one for just over $14,000.

BIGGER IS BETTER
Competition is getting fierce, too. Nearly every automaker on earth has set up shop in China, and some 80 brands are now available in the country. That has helped push gross margins across the industry down from 15.1% last year to 8.8% in the first half of 2007, estimates Citigroup. “It is a confusing picture—there is very strong growth, and yet people are cutting prices and margins are falling,” says Michael J. Dunne, Shanghai-based managing director for China at J.D. Power. “Everyone is clawing for what they can get.”

Even as the market for the smallest cars has been a disappointment, bigger models are still moving. Sales of compacts are up by 46%, and midsize sedans have jumped 35%, J.D. Power reports. That has helped manufacturers of larger cars such as Volkswagen ( ), which saw its sales in China and Hong Kong jump 30% in the first nine months. VW has boosted its share from 15% to 18%, widening its lead over No. 2 GM, with 9.8%. Toyota Motor ( ) is another big winner. Sales of its $43,000-plus Crown luxury sedan, its midsize Camry (priced from $26,373 to $35,973), and smaller autos were up 40% through August. With about 8% of the market, the company is in a dead heat with Chery and Honda for China’s No. 3 spot. “High-end cars are much cheaper than before,” says Hua Xue, CEO of auto industry Web site Cheshi.com.cn. “So buyers are more willing to buy better cars.”

Links
Five Chinese carmakers will exhibit at Detroit auto show

Safe Enough?
More Chinese companies than ever will attend the January event, The Detroit News wrote on Oct. 5. But their cars aren’t destined for the U.S. yet, and the paper questions whether their safety standards are up to snuff.
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Jamaica’s main opposition has won a narrow election victory, preliminary results indicated today.

But the country’s first female prime minister said the race was too close to call, and her People’s National party (PNP) would not be conceding victory.

The opposition Jamaica Labour party (JLP) won 31 of the 60 seats in the house of representatives in yesterday’s poll, enough to oust the prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, and end her party’s near-20-year hold on power.

The director of elections, Danville Walker, said it would take about two days to complete the final count.

“We don’t usually have too many things change during the final count, but we must remember that this is a preliminary count,” Mr Walker said on Television Jamaica.

But Mrs Simpson Miller said there were a number of races that were so close they could switch in a recount, and she was concerned election rules may have been violated.

“We are conceding no victory to the Jamaica Labour party,” she said.

Despite her announcement, jubilant JLP supporters drove through the streets of the capital, Kingston, in convoys, honking their horns as passengers leaned out the windows.

Hundreds of supporters cheered and waved green flags at party headquarters as Mr Golding took the stage to the strains of the Bob Marley song Coming in from the Cold.

Mr Golding warned that the “tenuous” and narrow victory could make governing a challenge. But he noted that the PNP had won three seats by fewer than 100 votes, and his side’s margin could widen.

“However perplexing some may find the results, the fact is that the people have spoken, and we of the Jamaica Labour party accept and respect the decision of the people,” he said.

Few policy or ideological differences divide the parties but, as the challenger, Mr Golding promised bold attempts to kickstart the economy, create jobs and fight corruption.

About 1.3 million people were eligible to vote for the Caribbean island’s 60-member parliament.

To shore up its popularity, the ruling party appointed Mrs Simpson Miller, 61, its leader 18 months ago, calculating that her humble origins and common touch would secure a fifth consecutive term.

The prime minister, widely known as Sista P, retains widespread affection. But confidence has been eroded by party scandals, violent crime and sluggish growth. When Hurricane Dean swept through coastal regions last month she was accused of hiding in a bunker.

At least 17 people were reportedly killed in political violence in the run-up to the election. Yesterday seemed relatively calm, with soldiers and police guarding polling stations to prevent any repeat of the shootings of previous election days.