p2pnet - rss feed: Britain’s ‘fixed’ TV shows
p2pnet.net news:- Britain’s ITV was recently forced to take down its quiz channel ITV Play and suspend all premium-rate interactive services, text votes and red button interaction.
It’s accused of over-charging and the “crisis” involving ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five premium-rate interactive services, “deepened yesterday as regulators warned that police could become involved and MPs said the affair had destroyed the credibility of the industry,” says The Guardian.
“Five yesterday followed the lead of ITV in hurriedly pulling all viewer quizzes, votes and competitions from the air after concerns that viewers had been conned.
“It emerged last night that the three broadcasters’ chiefs - ITV executive chairman Michael Grade, Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan and Five chief executive Jane Lighting - will appear before the Commons media select committee to tell MPs what they knew and when.”
X Factor viewers were overcharged by £200,000 (today, about $385,526) because of an error over interactive voting, said The Scotsman on Monday, continuing, “And there was further trouble for the broadcaster at the weekend when a Sunday newspaper claimed viewers of ITV1’s Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway had been urged to contact the show using £1-per-entry phone lines even though contestants had already been chosen.”
The latest move came, “as chairman John Whittingdale, whose committee scrutinised the quiz TV sector this year, said that viewers’ confidence in the industry was being eroded. He said: “We lifted up a stone and since then every day has brought fresh revelations. It’s got to the stage where it’s beginning to bring the entire industry into disrepute. Their credibility has been completely destroyed. Nobody in their right mind would enter one of these things at the moment.”
Big Brother producer Endemol, “was responsible for perhaps the most serious case yet with a programme made for Five which faked phone-in winners to encourage more callers” and, “On one occasion a member of the production team went on air to pose as a winning contestant,” says The Guardian.
Also See:
forced to take down - ITV chops phone-in quizzes, March 6, 2007
The Guardian - Police may be called in over fixed TV shows, March 9, 2007
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at thIs the end (of the Net) nigh?zze University of Toronto’s Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you’re Chinese and you’re looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.
rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php | | And use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site
Tired of being treated like a criminal? They depend on you, not the other way around. Don’t buy their ‘product’. Do bug your local politicians. Use emails, snail-mail, phone calls, faxes, IM, stop them in the street, blog. And if you’re into organizing, organize petitions, organize demonstrations and then turn up on your local political rep’s doorstep, making sure you’ve contacted your local tv/radio station/newspaper in advance. Don’t just complain. Do something!
