Tighter rules for quiz shows and channels

Don't know if these apply mainly to the Quiz channel type shows - or whether we'll be getting more on screen jargon on shows like Deal or No Deal and This Morning too.


http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2050121,00.html


Basically:

Remind of cost of calls every 10 minutes
Warn viewers after they've spent £10 on calls
Reveal the chances of a caller getting through





Funny how none of these actually relate to any of the major problems revealed in recent weeks! I'm getting seriously pissed off with the announcements about people being charged if they call in after the lines close.

As Eammon Holmes said when they made it on This Morning today - your an idiot if you call in after the lines close anyway!


And really, todays news of patients in hospital facing charges of 26p a minute - an increase of 160% - to use a bedside hospital phone - show that TV quizzes is but a minor problem in the phone industry!

Well The Gadget Show on Five had it's competition brought back after a few weeks of it not being there. They usually remind viewers at the end of the show.. but I don't think it was ten minutes?

A bit of clarification on this - it only applies to quiz channels or shows in that mould, so competitions on Deal or No Deal etc. would be exempt - which is a good thing because not only would these measures be an unneccessary intrusion, they'd lead to the competitions being more heavily promoted if anything else.


There is a major loop hole though with this stating the chance of winning thing - as it's done on a delayed basis, the way competitions are structured can mean if a difficult competition is followed by an easy competition, on screen it might appear there are less entries when the easy game is in play - and therefore encourage more people to play.


Also, as these channels rely on hundreds rather than thousands of callers, some people's perceptions may change and if they see just a couple of hundred entrants, they might be more encouraged to phone in than if they didn't know and believed the chances were much lower!

Also these channels are increasingly using phone lines that answer and then say 'sorry you are not successful on this occasion'. I wonder whether this rule will be the number of people phoning or the number getting through the first stage?



Yes, one ofthe issues on these channels is that the presenters saying 'there's no-one calling in' or 'we've no right answers yet' when there are loads of people calling in and getting rejected.

or as the Beeb put it:

http://www.gorillaenterprises.co.uk/upload/uploadFiles/quiz2_.jpg

http://www.gorillaenterprises.co.uk/upload/uploadFiles/quiz3_.jpg

http://www.gorillaenterprises.co.uk/upload/uploadFiles/quiz1_.jpg

The new rules don't go far enough - but I wasn't expecting them to. If these god-awful programmes have to exist, we at least need:

Calls charged-capped at 50p;
Free web entry alternative mandatory;
Winners get cost of call refunded as well as winnings;
Spend warnings at £5, not £10

Webcams for backstage and gallery (complete with talkback) wouldn't be a bad idea either. This way, no more calls not being put through or answers being suddenly changed without the unsuspecting punter knowing.

It's about time this Quiz Channels ought to be stopped,

Why can't the bosses from TV put something decent on over night. Instead of these Quizzes which don't seem any good to me!

Regards
cmrradio2007

Great British Quiz seems to still be providing work for one of this year's Eurovision entrants, Russ from Scooch.

That's just you being a TV geek that is!

I actually think this would be the ultimate deterrent for the more unscrupulous gaming channels, such as Big Game TV, and has nothing to do with my interest in broadcasting!

The best way to stop people going overboard is to have an automated system on their first call of the day asking them to key in their budget for that evening, and then preventing any further entries that night after their budget has been used up.

This new system is nice in theory, but there will always be loopholes.

If they cap call charges - they'd have to do it for all premium rate lines. You wouldn't know it, but TV isn't the only media willing to rip people off in this way.

Free Web entry - to be fair most, if not all, of them do anyhow. I think though they need to be clearer about how the selection process works as alot of people don't believe web entrants are ever chosen.

As for refunding call costs for winners - that would make the problem worse if anything, with people phoning in more if they believed they'd get the call costs refunded.

Spend warnings - yep, at £10 a day it's still £70 a week - which however much spare cash you might have is still alot to fork out for premium rate calls. The physical limit of calls you can make needs to be dropped too - many are currently 100-150 calls a day.


I think it be better to do what Teletext Games do and have people set up a pre-paid account. They'd then use a freephone number to access their account when they wanted to play.



I think these rules though still only tackle the gambling aspect of the problem - there is nothing on dodgy questions or dodgy winners!