Quiz TV closes down

I do not think all quizzes are out to con people, let me get that straight.

But, I would say, I think the problem lies in the fact that while quizzes are not necessarily operating illegally, some are operating to such a point where their fairness is questionable.

If you think it's fine for quizzes to do word puzzles where the answer is a four letter gibberish word, that's your point of view. IMO, more attention should be paid to how these quizzes are run, in terms of viewers' chances of winning and whether these chances are far too slim, based on factors which include number of calls received & taken, and the puzzles themselves.

I did'nt realise CITV had presenters.

To me Quiz Call is the worst for staring in people's faces for minutes before taking a call. Especially that woman with the particularly 'stary' eyes and greasy skin.

Well, it was going to happen. I used to watch Big Game TV late nights on ITV2 - it was watchable until they just kept conning people with the "Count the Words/numbers" quizzes night after night.

Well, so long as Greg Scott is kept on air - i don't care.

You know exactly what he meant you numpty - she is a past CITV presenter. Now go away. Thank you.

Hard as it seems, I agree though not certain how the great British public counts as fraud. Screw 'em, fraudulent or otherwise, still a way to split the gormless from their cash and somehow the gormless, bless their cotton socks, need to be protected even if they do win £100 and believe these outfits could turn water into wine if given a good enough chance.

Though I'd kinda like if they stayed around if only to provide income for half-cocked Butlins rejects, washed-up TV folk and comedians so achingly bad it makes Joe Pasquale seem like a comic legend but earns brownie points from the TVF faithful for making obscure TV pres references and appearing here and having catchphrases that Timmy bloody Mallet would baulk at using. He's the ******* lovechild of Freddie Star and Bobby Davro FFS! Now, watch nok32uk jump to this patsy's defence like a giddy child seeing his "bestest TV staer evuh lol!!1!!111".

All it takes is for people to watch for 5 minutes before calling. In that time, they should have an idea of how many callers the channel takes (at that moment in time), how much the call costs and how the puzzle works. If people still decide to call it when they can see for themselves that they have little or no chance of winning then thats their lookout. Why are you so concerned about it?

Detach the fraud bit from my quote and you're left with "Simple, like the Great British Public" which is what I meant. A fool and his money are soon parted, and this is what quiz TV channels thrive on. As long as the gullible suckers keep phoning in, these channels will survive.

A Teletext reader recently stated that making call after call to The Mint in a 15-minute period cost her £24. On the surface, a flat-rate charge of 60p sounds good value, but this proves that it isn't. If Ofcom, ICSTIS etc. could force quiz channels to use 0870 or even 020 numbers, most would give up and go home.

Thats very patronising. Now apologise.

So should there be some form of safety net to stop them from themselves or is that just a bit too 'nanny state' to be reasonable? Can't see how in extreme cases it's no different from many other addictions in terms of what vices it can hold on the person.


A 60p charge doesn't seem good value even if for a one-shot call given the likelihood of actually winning being very limited though she did call roughly once every 80 seconds which seems a bit compulsive as they weren't threatening to kill her family should she fail to. Using cheaper calls would most likely mean these outfits would lose most of their revenue and give up and go home as you say. Depends if the companies concerned have deep enough pockets to flout ICSTIS' £10,000 fines for using premuim rate numbers should such legislation be imposed.


To whom? You or the false god of light entertainment? I decline to give either of you apologies because it's true.

The major concern for me is that OFCOM and ICTSIS have been sitting on their hands and doing nothing about this seemingly great rip-off.

One hopes that police involvement produces the desired effect; the authorties that are supposed to be protecting the public from themselves will now hopefully take their responsibilities seriously.

Then again, I might just be waiting in vain...

Ah, but I'm not overly concerned with this issue in particular, I'm just against unfair practice in general. So, if this incident with Big Game TV serves as the catalyst to start closer monitoring of other similar channels , that's a good thing, while if that doesn't come about, then I'll just have to let it be. For now, I'll let other people complain to OFCOM.

And I'm probably more worried about OFCOM's stance, the lack of a more strict approach to this, than the quiz channels themselves.

The one that sticks in my mind was on the Channel 5 one a few weeks back, they were asking for car makes and the board was pre-filled at the start of the game with obvious answers like Nissan, Skoda, BMW etc. There were about 4 or 5 left over, and people rang in for the best part of half an hour before I got bored and went to bed.

I decided out of morbid curiosity to tape the last ten minutes of the show. All 5 were still unclaimed, and when the woman revealed the answers they were a load of totally obscure answers that absolutely no-one would ever get in a month of Sundays, such as Facel Vega. They only left them up a couple of seconds as well before fading to credits.

Totally misleading given the answers already on the board. Risky though I guess as if anyone had somehow stumbled on one of the answers they'd have had to give away around £20,000.