Premium rate phone-in saga: ITV Play Channel Axed

Well the CEO of TGBBQ resigned 48hrs earlier according to the same site for reasons unknown. The Daily Quiz is also "taking a break from broadcasting" which may be another way of saying "bye".

The bottom in Quiz Telly developed leaks months ago, and with the entire Premium Rate saga, the bottom has now rusted away and everything's now falling out.

Cash Call looks like its bitten the dust permanently now as its always looked dodgy. Might have had fun seeing how many people they claim to be calling. Quiz Call, I reckon will be gone by this time next year - there's absolutely no sign of QC on the iTouch website. Everything else they do is there. Pop The Q might be one of the last two or three to go. Knowing ITV, ITV Play on ITV1 will run forever and a day once it ends up being the only one still left.

Instead of Great Big Quiz, FTN have resorted to showing ITV Playalong style computerised games. In fact its probably the same company.

Oh there is a Bonus Ball Bonanza.

Ftn is still broadcasting TGBBQ - except that TGBBQ has decided to start running the WinWinTV software all day and all night in lieu of the fact that they're going to wind up shortly so no more studio output.

Point of notice time - the music on Bonus Ball Bonanza as shown on TGBBQ is exactly the same "theme tune" as Play DJ on ITV Play was. Now that really goes to show how cheap Play DJ was - reusing one of the ditties from the software the same company made.

Thinking back, I can't even believe Play DJ existed on the ITV Network. I'm now passing most of ITV Play off as a bad dream. I hope it never ever returns and that **** and Fake Your Play soon die a death as well.

Make Your Play are currently unable to take calls...

That happened similar to when Quizmania Australia had a breakdown..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1bE_7mxqh8

*flicks to Ftn out of morbid curiousity, since it's between midnight and 3am, in light of the above comment*

There's no phone-in stuff on Ftn at all right now - they're showing a poker tournament right now, then, per EPG, two episodes of something called "Travel Sick", which sounds like some sort of XTREEEM! travel show from the description, then 25 mins of the "A-Z of Bad Boys" and 10 minutes of "The Warehouse" to take Ftn up to their normal 3am Takeshi's Castle repeats.

Travel Sick... back to FTN's old 'if all else fails put some Grub on' approach. Still, better than nothing.

I think a limit of 'interactive' programming should be set to a daily limit - similar tv commercials.

Say 20% per transmission day limit per channel (based on each programme) - so if 'This Morning' has an interactive slot - then that is 2-hours gone of their 4.1 hours gone! (ITV1 is on air for 21.5 hours a day).

Loose Women would leave them just one hour (or so) left to fill the night-time with interactive tv.

They can they concentrate on making money by attracting advertisers to decent programmes.

Make your play was funny last night (cant believe im saying this here) maybe they should turn "wait your play" into a chatshow and GB in a Late night Strictly Come Dancing

That's not a bad idea, although counting the whole of a programme within an 'interactive' quota when they might only do a couple of short solicits in that time isn't really on. It would be better only to count the time playing a game or plugging a phone number.

Also 'Interactive' is a bit broad, would you penalise phone-ins too?

Story on the front page of tomorrows Sunday Express :

"Deal or No Deal in new phone line probe"