£20 million, but both Carlton and Granada objected to the deal. Guardian Media Group concluded in selling off its 15% stake in GMTV for £18 million in January 2000, with all three companies receiving 5% - allowing the four remaining stakeholders to have an equal 25% stake in the company. In October 2003, STV made public its interest in acquiring Carlton and Granada's stakes in GMTV. Andrew Flanagan, chief executive, was quoted as saying: 'We would be interested in buying GMTV. You need a trigger to try to do something and that's what we have tried to engineer.' STV believed having a controlling stake in GMTV would allow an effective command against the newly formed ITV sales department. In September 2004, ITV plc purchased STV Group's 25% in the company for £31 million after being given the go ahead from the Office of Fair Trading - despite advertisers' fears it could give ITV influence over pricing. SMG said: '[We] are pulling out of GMTV because it did not want to hold a minority interest in someone else's media business.' In 2005, Holmes left the station. It was later exposed he was deeply unhappy with the 'dumbing down and commercialisation', which resulted in him hating his bosses. Phone-in scandal In April 2007, BBC One's programme Panorama made claims that Opera - a company dealing with GMTV's phone-in competitions - were finalising shortlists of potential winners 'long before' lines closed, which resulted in viewers wasting an estimated £10 million a year since April 2003 on entering premium rate phone competitions. Paul Corley, managing director of GMTV, said: 'I'd just like to apologise for everything that's gone on. GMTV had trusted Opera, but, the fact is it appears two or three people at this telecoms company were taking it upon themselves to do this even without the knowledge of the management. This contradicted claims made by Panorama that in 2003, sales director Mark Nuttall at Opera had discovered the situation and sent an e-mail to staff, saying: 'Make sure they never find out you are picking the winners early.' Two senior executives resigned: Controller of Enterprises Kate Fleming, and Managing Director Paul Corley. On 24 September that year, Opera was fined £250,000, while GMTV was fined £2 million by Ofcom, who stated: 'the breaches constituted a substantial breakdown in the fundamental relationship of trust between a public service broadcaster and its viewers. The