Brit Regulator Hits Net for Fake Call-In Winners

[uncamark]

Channel 5 in the UK will have to cough up 300,000 GBP and run two on-air apologies for Endemol putting in fake names and names of staffers as winners in call-in contests on the now-defunct game show "Brainteaser":

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,2112287,00.html

It's the biggest fine levied by government regulator Ofcom and they say that they are prepared to do it again, if necessary.  Several call-in contests on UK non-game shows have gotten in hot water for faking or rigging results in the last few years--I don't think they've caught the call-in-and-lose market yet, which is much bigger over there than here, but it's probably coming.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'uncamark\' post=\'156181\' date=\'Jun 27 2007, 04:06 PM\']It's the biggest fine levied by government regulator Ofcom and they say that they are prepared to do it again, if necessary.  Several call-in contests on UK non-game shows have gotten in hot water for faking or rigging results in the last few years--I don't think they've caught the call-in-and-lose market yet, which is much bigger over there than here, but it's probably coming.[/quote]
But what would be the problem with the call-in-and-lose games?  Surely they're on the up-and-up; the payouts seem too small to bother with rigging them, plus some of our own members have been winners.  Sure they're deceptive, but it doesn't seem to me that they're criminally so.

[tvmitch]

If the rules are legal on either shore, and there's no rigging going on, then the shows will stay on. Even if the shows are call-in-and-lose. The shows that are on now are just a cheaper version of the old Trivial Pursuit with less smarts.