ITV run a huge number of competitions each year, with their website showing at the time of writing (September 2022) that they’ve given away well over seven million pounds in cash in the last twelve months.
Winners are contacted by ITV in line with their competition terms and conditions, which usually means up to five weeks after the competition closes.
When Do Competitions Close?
Due to the range of competitions ITV promote, there can be a significant amount of time between the first entry being received and a winner getting a call. In extreme cases, competitions can run for several months on air, and remain open until the final entry route closes, which is usually postal entries.
As a rule of thumb, the competitions on daytime TV tend to close for entries via phone, text message and online through the website on a Friday afternoon. Postal entries then remain open until the following Thursday afternoon, presumably to allow time for them to work their way through the postal system.
When Are ITV Winners Chosen?
According to the ITV terms and conditions, for most competitions the winner is chosen at random from all entries. The alternative here might be something like a skill based contest where judges select a best piece of artwork. On this page, we’re only talking about competitions in the sense where winners are selected at random.
Once all routes have closed (usually after the postal entries deadline has passed), a winner is selected at random within a week.
Once A Winner Has Been Chosen, When Will They Receive A Call?
Referring to the terms and conditions again, most competitions will allow for attempts to contact a winner to continue for a period of 28 days once a they have been chosen.
From time to time, prizes may mean this needs to happen faster. A good example might be if the prize includes tickets to the final show, which is common with series like The Voice and Saturday Night Takeaway. In these cases, the 4 week window may be shortened accordingly.
What Happens If Winners Cannot Be Reached?
While there is a little bit of a grey area in the terms and conditions, Andi Peters has frequently said that there’s a guaranteed winner for every competition on ITV.
The Ts and Cs state that once the 4 week window passes, if a winner cannot be contacted they may forfeit the prize, but the word ‘may’ rather than ‘will’ makes it a little ambiguous.
Reading between the lines, it might give ITV the chance to continue to try to contact the first winner for longer before they lose the chance to accept their prize, and move onto the next randomly drawn entrant to take their place as the winner.
How Do I Know If It Is ITV Calling Me?
The obvious answer is to answer the phone! We all get spam calls from scammers impersonating genuine companies from time to time, but if you’re a lucky winner, the chances are that ITV will know enough about you to convince you that it’s genuine.
A common question is what number use to call winners, but for obvious reasons they don’t publish that – they don’t want everyone who has entered phoning them to see if they’ve won!
We’ve addressed this in more detail on our page about the phone numbers ITV call winners from here.
Will ITV Leave Me A Voicemail Telling Me I’m A Competition Winner?
While you might get an answerphone message telling you that ITV are trying to get hold of you, it’s unlikely that they’ll tell you that you’re a winner there and then. It’s more likely that they’ll try again later and there’s a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, media companies have a duty of care to think about, and even though it’s very good news, finding out you’ve won a lot of money can have strange effects on people. Lottery operators have been quick to advise people who win big to get financial advice for years, so it may be that ITV do the same.
Secondly, and more likely, ITV will record their calls as they make great sound bites when promoting future competitions, so will be keen to catch the reactions of winners when they get the amazing news.
Of course, winners will be able to say no to being publicly identified on TV, but there’s only one chance to catch that magic moment over the phone, so you can bet they’ll be sure to catch it, even if it can’t be used later.
We should add, if you do find that you’ve been left a voicemail from ITV, there’s no guarantee you’re a winner, so only get a little bit excited until you hear for sure.
