The BBC is to apologise to the Kent Messenger Group over the way it handled a complaint about a magazine produced and distributed on behalf of Radio Kent by Kent on Sunday.

The BBC Trust’s Fair Trading Policy and Appeals Committee has upheld an appeal by KMG concerning a BBC fair trading investigation, saying that while the issues raised did not amount to a serious breach of the BBC’s fair trading guidelines, there had been breaches of procedure in the investigation.

It said the original response from the BBC Fair Trading was unsatisfactory because some of the statements in its findings were not substantiated, and it had not gone far enough in explaining how the investigation had been conducted or how conclusions had been reached.

The original complaint concerned the quarterly BBC Radio Kent County Life magazine, a commercial venture undertaken by KoS on behalf of BBC Radio Kent, which includes editorial content from the station.

KoS finances its production and distribution and around a fifth of each issue is taken up with advertising. The BBC invoices KoS Media for a fixed fee per edition and Radio Kent is paid a royalty per magazine sold.

KMG editorial director Simon Irwin wrote to the BBC raising concerns over whether there was proper separation between the BBC’s publicly-funded and KoS’s commercial activities.

He also asked whether the BBC’s charges for editorial copy and the use of its brand were fair, and whether on-air references to the magazine were appropriate.

This was investigated by BBC Fair Trading, which found no fault.

However the Fair Trading Policy and Appeals Committee of the BBC Trust found that although the original complaint had been more thorough than the impression given to Simon, there was some evidence to support his claim that it was not as rigorous or independent as it might have been.

It said it was unable to support the conclusion that the magazine was published in accordance with Radio Station Magazine Guidelines, and evidence did not fully support that KoS paid a fair rate for editorial copy and that payments covered all relevant costs or that the magazine was not being advertised or trailed through on-air mentions and that any reference to the magazine was always editorially justified.

In addition to upholding the appeal and asking that a letter of apology be sent to KMG, the Committee noted that BBC Radio Kent had already served notice of its intention to terminate the contract for provision of the magazine and it should therefore be allowed to run to termination on the existing terms.

During this time, Radio Kent must ensure that records of all time spent on producing content for the magazine are maintained and a senior member of the executive should be appointed to oversee that the value of this time did not exceed the value of the charges made for content, and all on-air mentions of the magazine should be stopped unless there was strong editorial justification and specific approval had been secured from a senior member of the BBC Executive.

In addition, to prevent re-occurrence of the breach, the Committee would require that: