The BBC are under siege at the moment after unveiling further incidents of editorial breaches in competitions and voting. An internal BBC review, which included programmes going back to 2005, discovered four incidents though none involved premium rate telephone lines. Two of the incidents included shows from BBC 6 Music, and as a result the station's head of programmes Ric Blaxhill has resigned from his position.

The most high profile of the breaches was an online poll conducted in conjunction with children's show Blue Peter, in January last year. An online audience vote took place to determine the name of the new Blue Peter cat. The name "Cookie" (thanks TVScoop readers) won the vote but, unfathomably, this was overruled by part of the production team in favour of "Socks" which was deemed to be a more suitable name for the kitten. Just what is 'inappropriate' about the name Cookie?

An apology will be broadcast to viewers on Blue Peter next Tuesday (September 25) when the show returns for the new series. As compensation the show is to introduce another kitten to the programme who will be given the name "Cookie" as voted for by viewers. "Socks" will also remain on the team. It all seems too little too late.

The other incidents include a BBC Asian Network show which featured an audience vote for awards winners in a Bollywood programme, Film Café. The vote was overruled by a member of the production team in two categories, once as a result of an error in reading results and once on the basis that the genuine winner was unavailable for interview.

A competition on the 6 Music Clare McDonnell Show, transmitted in September 2006 received insufficient winning entries and so a member of the production team supplemented audience winners with some fictional winners. Over time, a very small number of winning entries were also disregarded as they came from listeners who had repeatedly won competitions on BBC 6 Music.

The fourth incident occurred on a Tom Robinson BBC 6 Music show. The offer of tickets from a band led to the creation of an ad-hoc competition for which no entries were received. A member of the production team invented a fictional winner for the competition whose name was then broadcast.

Mark Thompson said: "I would like to repeat my apology to viewers and listeners who were misled by these editorial lapses. The BBC has taken a wide range of actions in recent months to strengthen our editorial guidelines and processes to address the very significant concern rightly felt over editorial misjudgements. Although these lapses amount to tens of hours across one million hours of broadcasting, the BBC's standards must be as high in small scale competitions as they are in the most major news story. I believe that the actions we have and are taking demonstrate the central importance the whole BBC places on getting it right."

The BBC has also announced a new programme of editorial training, Safeguarding Trust, which will begin in November. All 16,500 BBC production and content staff are expected to participate in the mandatory training programme, which will help them understand and comply with all of the BBC's values and editorial standards.

A number of disciplinary proceedings have been undertaken, and the BBC will see a "a phased and controlled return of competitions" on BBC programmes and online in November, which are currently suspended.

Competitions will now be approved and supervised at a senior level. Thompson said he expected "a significant reduction in the number of competitions being broadcast by the BBC," but he recognised that audiences "very much enjoyed taking part in BBC programmes in this way." Can the BBC regain viewer trust after this?