Premium rate phone-in saga: ITV Play Channel Axed

It's been quite amusing to chart the sudden rise, subsequent saturation and now the fall of this genre.

Question is if ITV can't make a go of it, how can any of the others afford to. I guess ITV's problem was that it was multi-spectrum and the carriage costs were prohibitive.

But I fail to see how the likes of Big Game, Great Big British Quiz, Quiz Call and the like can still make a go of it.

Well I guess most are airing on other channels - so not paying for their spectrum space. Indeed, they probably get a fee for providing the content along with half the phone profits. General arrangement seems to be the profits are split between the channel and the producer.


Tried to find the figures for how much ITV shell out for that slot on Mux D which is used for ITV Play - only report I've seen suggested £5m - annually I think.

Quizcall does that because they are cheap and can't afford to do fancy graphics

there more chance of me phoning them up that anyone else!

more fool you then. Have you seen that video of answer reveals on youtube. All of them are much more obscure than anything you ever got on ITV Play (excluding the famous 1 game)

When did the first premium rate phone number for competitions begin? I remember when R&J on This Morning, they did that Midday Money thing.......no that is a long shot.

TV:AM are one of the earliest when they were giving away Game Boy's when they first came out, I never won one

They were certainly in The Big Breakfast from the start in 1992 - they had a London 081 number for general phone ins and an 0891 number for competitions - 25p a time in those days.

Live and Kicking was the same - and probably Going Live before it.


It might even go back as far as the Tiswas/Swap Shop days.


Random thought - trying to imagine ITV Play in the style of the 1950's BBC!

Ah i see, thanks. You know i never got a Game Boy - i'm 19, would it be a waste of time buying one, like the Nintendo DS.

Them axing ITV Play, id guess they did that because there reputation has now been tarnished, or the fact they were guilty as charged?

Get with it boy - it's been used as the excuse to axe ITV Play as the channel itself isn't commercially viable - it's the ITV1 overnight slot that rakes in the cash.


The writing has been on the cards for months now.

Oh ok, don't know how i missed that one

I'll be happy if and when The Mint comes back. Id prefer to watch that at night then repeats of I Want That House, Jeremy Kyle or Jules and Lulu Show.

Premium rate numbers are a relatively new invention - late 80's. But even then they weren't really used by TV programmes, which all used normal telephone numbers (01 811 8055 for example). The only non-normal phone lines I can remember were things such as 'cricketline' which were short numbers

IIRC it was around the Live & Kicking era when numbers like 0891 started being used on TV for competitions, until then (and for a while after) Competitions were done by writing the answer on a postcard and sending it in for the following week!

The first programme with phone voting was 'Bob Says Opportunity Knocks, can't remember what type of number they used, might have been 0898?