The faked phone-ins scandal appears to have blown over, with four of five network broadcasters now to allow them back on to schedules.
Premium rate phone-ins run by broadcasters, many of which were suspended or cancelled due to controversy over faked competition results, are making a comeback.
Five and MTV have both announced this week that they will incorporate the phone-ins and interactive competitions into their schedules once more. This follows similar moves which have already been announced by ITV and the BBC, the two largest broadcasters in the UK in terms of audience share.
Contracts between Five, MTV and the Mobile Interactive Group (MIG), a provider of the infrastructure for large phone-ins, are understood to be currently being drawn up.
The competitions have been largely absent from the screen in recent months, after broadcasters were forced to admit that several premium rate phone-ins had been secretly rigged. Competition prizes on programmes including BBC Radio One's Jo Whiley show, ITV's Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and Channel 4's Richard and Judy were found to have apparently gone to employees, rather than to members of the public.
Despite this, the broadcasters continued to broadcast the phone-in numbers for viewers to enter these competitions - and therefore continued to derive revenue through charges.
Fines from regulator Ofcom have since been handed down, with ITV facing a record levy exceeding £5 million in May.
Commenting on this verdict at the time, Ofcom chief executive Ed Richards had said: "This was a thorough set of investigations which uncovered institutionalised failure within ITV that enabled the broadcaster to make money from misconduct on mass audience programmes. The industry can be in no doubt how seriously Ofcom takes the issue of audience trust."
