UK Channel 5 suspends premium after some of it's programmes are caught bullshitting

Gahh they are falling like flies.

Have a read of this press release. I copied the whole content to preserve it for posterity.

Alex caught this release from Five UK

Link: five statement re brainteaser | press | five.tv

Five has suspended all its programming involving premium rate telephone services after Endemol UK informed the channel of issues with its daily quiz show Brainteaser, it was announced today (THURS).

As well as Brainteaser, produced by an Endemol UK subsidiary, the suspension will affect Quiz Call on Five and Five US and competitions in and around programming.

Five’s Chief Executive, Jane Lighting, said: ‘We are shocked and disappointed and wish to apologise unreservedly to our viewers. The production company involved has failed to meet the high standards we demand of our suppliers.

”We have decided to suspend any output which involves any premium rate services and to appoint an external auditor, though we have found no evidence of any issues involving any programmes other than Brainteaser.”

Responding to recent public concerns Five has been reviewing its premium rate services to ensure producers comply with the law and ICSTIS and Ofcom codes.

As part of this on-going review Five wrote to all its production companies and suppliers reminding them of their legal and regulatory obligations in this area.

So that’s the first part of the press release over. Now for the juicy bit…

Following this communication Five was contacted yesterday (WEDNESDAY) evening by Cheetah Television, a production subsidiary of Endemol UK and maker of Five’s afternoon quiz series Brainteaser, who raised an issue regarding this programme.

Endemol UK then confirmed to Five that irregularities had been found regarding the newly introduced, ‘Quickfire” element of the quiz where viewers are given a set time, approximately five minutes, to solve a word jumble puzzle.

Endemol UK outlined five separate incidents, dating from January until Tuesday this week. When the five minute window and the phone lines had closed, Cheetah Television, working through a list of callers supplied by the phone service provider, were unable to find a caller with the correct answer before the winner was due to be announced on air.

Ok and here’s the kicker…

Instead of informing viewers that no winning caller had been found in the time period available the production company put fictional names on screen as ‘winners” and on one occasion a member of the production team went on air as a ‘winning” contestant.

Oh. My. God. They actually bullshitted it and pretended to be winners? Gahhhhhh.

Absolutely ridiculous. I understand it’s TV and there are time pressures, but this isn’t a little quiz for the fun of it, this is real money belonging to real people interacting with Channel 5.

Five is currently ascertaining how many callers have been affected on these five separate occasions and will be giving them a full refund of the cost of the call.

That could be quite a lot of cash.

Well it’s just ridiculous. It’s ridiculous and it’s irresponsible.

First of all, where the hell is the regulator?

What the hell have they been doing? ‘Regulating’?

Either they need more powers to actually sort this shit out or they should just go home. Clearly, everyone and their dog has been knocking up premium interactive services and been arsing around paying lip service to ‘regulatory advice’ and taking as much cash as they can.

It’s outrageous that there’s been next to no monitoring by Channel 5 either. What the hell have they been doing? Sitting around taking the cash and hoping everything was going ok, safe in the knowledge that if there was an arse, they could blame-it-on-the-production-company?

The actual arse here is not the companies having their reputations scraped across the media at the moment. It’s the companies who ARE standing by ICSTIS guidelines that are likely to have a bit of a difficult time as a result. Yes they can hold their heads high, but how are repeated ‘you’re being nailed’ messages being received by the consumers? The industry could well be — actually, let’s be frank — IS tarred with the same brush. The moment you start seeing stories in The Sun and on the television news, you know that the message is probably getting through to the end-consumer.

However, here’s an interesting point. Do you think there will be any long-term damage in terms of revenue? I’m wondering, because the people who religiously use these ITV Play style games must KNOW that they were already being taken for a ride — do you think they’ll care? I wonder if they’ll carry on playing? Well, the might have, if only ITV and Channel 5 hadn’t seen fit to SWITCH OFF service — thus alerting everyone and their dog that there are problems. They couldn’t have just resolved any issues in private without having to switch stuff off?

Well, we shall see.