The fine is by far the highest imposed by Ofcom or any of the previous regulators. The highest fine previously imposed by Ofcom was £2m on GMTV last year, for a breach of premium rate phone-in rules.
The fines covered breaches of regulations during Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, for which Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty on LWT of £3m and has directed the company to broadcast a summary of Ofcom's findings on two occasions on ITV1.
Ofcom said the charges on ITV reflected the "seriousness of ITV's failures, but also their repeated nature".
ITV has pledged an additional £7.8m to compensate viewers who called numerous ITV premium rate phone-ins.
Ofcom also charged LWT £1.2m for Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon, and Granada £1.2m for Soapstar Superstar.
The chairman of Ofcom's Content Sanctions Committee, Philip Graf, said: "ITV programme makers totally disregarded their own published terms and conditions and Ofcom Codes. Further, there was a completely inadequate compliance system in place. The result was that millions of paying entrants were misled into believing they could fairly interact with some of ITV's most popular programmes."
ITV apologised for its actions and said it has put new measures and procedures in place since the phone-in issues were identified.
The broadcaster appointed law firm Olswang to conduct an independent investigation into allegations regarding the British Comedy Awards 2005, produced for the ITV Network by independent production company Michael Hurll Television. ITV has passed Olswang's findings to Ofcom.
Ofcom is still conducting investigations into the British Comedy Awards (2004 and 2005) broadcast on ITV1, the Secret Sound competition broadcast on a number of GCap Media radio stations, and several programmes on BBC radio and television.
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