I think you're misinterpreting the law, there only has to be an element of skill (or, indeed, a free way in) to eliminate the possibility of it falling under being a lottery, in which case the company has to give a proportion of the profits as tax.
There was actually some debate in the Commons some time ago about outlawing really easy qualifying questions, although goodness knows where that's got to.
But how would you classify how hard a question was? How long is a piece of string?
You're right. That
is
a hard question.
Who operated camera #3 during the first studio recording block, of the 1970s Dr Who story "Carnival of Monsters"?
Don't know? Exactly!
We all have different realms of knowledge from each other. So, although it's easy for the likes of you and me to say that the questions are "ridiculously easy", there's potentially people out there who won't know the answer. Especially people who aren't into celebrity/pop/media culture, as that is very often the subject matter of phone-in questions.
So, the "ridiculously easy" questions are
not
unreasonable. As Chris Tarrant would say, "It's only easy if you know the answer".
My mum's fiancee, for example, has absolutely no idea who the band "Queen" are/were. People on this Forum would probably think that "
everybody
knows who Queen are". But, there is probably no one thing that
literally everybody
knows about.
Having said all that, I would think that anybody who doesn't know the answers to the kind of things that TV phone-in competitions ask, probably wouldn't be watching the kind of programmes that contain such phone-ins, in the first place...
It's a very bizarre issue. And the phone-ins are easily
only just
the right side of legal. But there's not such thing as "almost illegal" in law. Either they're on the right side of gambling/competition law, or they're not. If they're *technically* not lotteries, there's nothing more to be argued (sadly).
So, the "ridiculously easy" questions are
not
unreasonable. As Chris Tarrant would say, "It's only easy if you know the answer".
My mum's fiancee, for example, has absolutely no idea who the band "Queen" are/were. People on this Forum would probably think that "
everybody
knows who Queen are". But, there is probably no one thing that
literally everybody
knows about.
Sorry, but that suggests someone who doesn't really know what they're on about. The sort of questions being considered here are easy because they're multiple choice, and the wrong answers are
clearly
ridiculous and labelled as such, or you've been told the answer less than a minute before the question. The new legislation was meant to put an end to that sort of thing and make sure there was a significant level of inherent skill involved, otherwise they're as good as lotteries anyway.
Paul O'Grady might be done by a different operator - and also the don't take the caller the same day as you ring in. If you ring in on a Thursday or Friday you're not going to get the chance to play until the next week as the shows are pre-recorded.
Don't know who does the Deal or No Deal comps - I suspect it's iTouch who do alot of things for Endemol.
