Itv make 20 Millions for calls to Quiz shows

Astaroth

hmm, strange that they are acting like sales people, selling the phone line over the "no purchase necessary" route of the website (you dont often see cadbury's saying about sending a SAE to them for free entry to their competitions rather than buying a chocolate bar and opening it to see inside the wrapper if you have won other than in the small print where it has to be stated)

As others have said, you can enter free online and can get software that will enter on your behalf - you can easily enough get software that will get around the "human interaction protection" as well - of cause if you read their T&Cs it does limit you to 30 enteries per show on the web for deal or no deal - no idea about the other shows that people have mentioned.

Willsnarf1983

i'd give Kat Shoob one

Will

BFG_2

These are currently considered 'skill games' (or something like that) as yuo have to answer a question/use logic/count up...but the authorities are considering changing them to being a 'lottery' ie strictly a game of chance. The rationale is that you have such a small chance of getting thru it is equivalent to buying a lottery ticket.This will be the death of these as they have to register, be supervised and give 20% of t/o (or profits) to charity.I agree with everyone that says 'enter online it's free!!!!@

Astaroth

That is the one bit that is confusing me though.

At the moment, as you say, the regulations are a lot lower for competitions that require "some element of skill" -v- those that are considered only a simple game of chance. One of the regulations that doesnt exist for skill competitions is the need for a "no purchase necessary" clause/ method of entry which is required for a non-Competitions Committee registered company.

As they do require some skill then under current legislation there is no need for them to provide the free web entry - I wonder if they are doing this to try to prevent the anticipated changes to the law by showing they are nice guys really or if it is so that if the law changes as most predict it will then they already have their "no purchase necessary" route established and will simply need to advertise the fact you can do it another way a little bit more prominately.

astonsmummy

How weird, i watch the mint when in bed sometimes as i have to sleep witht the telly on and was thinking to myself last night - must post on mse to find out how they make their money!
I knew it would be through phone calls but assumed that not many people would be that daft enought to phone in - obviously wrong!

deanos

They only use the web entry as this is a loophole in the law which allows them to broadcast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/5296354.stm

Tight_Wad_5

restricting the amount of times you can call to 150 per night - That is awful and in my opinion not good enough and very irresponsible of ITV.

They should be made to help people who get hooked on these types of quiz shows.

deanos

Channel 4 own the QuizCall channel and the government own Channel 4 , so they are all as bad as each other !

tomstickland

I'd never heard of the Mint until I read about it on MSE today.
All phone ins are money spinners. Noone forces you to do it though.

angelatgraceland

I just checked my phone bill today and found that dd phoned the mint 4 times in 10 minutes one night-obviously didnt get through. Cost about £4. I'm livid as I thought I'd managed to ban 09 numbers along with mobile numbers. I'm now onto the phone co to see why this happened. I don't like the idea of these expensive so-called competitions at all-even online there are around about £1 a shot. I never ever take part in them. Save the money in the bank instead!