TV rigs premium phone call votes in UK

Rating: abstain

By Annie Turner

The phone call voting scams that many UK TV shows are being accused of is
just the sort of thing that plunges the mobile
marketing/advertising/entertainment market in disrepute. Just as we are
beginning to put the ignominy of all those ringtones and wallpapers you
didn¹t want anyway, but carried on being charged for months later, behind
us, here we go again.

There are allegations that viewers who pay GBP1.50 or more per call to be
included on a programme or vote when in fact the decision they were voting
on had already been taken or they had little or no chance of being included.
TV programmes that have come in for criticism include Ant and Dec’s Saturday
Night Takeaway (Itv0, Brainteaser (Channel Five), Richard and Judy (Channel
4), I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (ITV), Saturday Kitchen (BBC1),
Soapstar Superstar (ITV) and the X Factor (ITV) plus LBC radio station which
covers the London area.

Will this tarnish and damage the whole viewer voting mechanism, including
premium rate SMS, even before regulator Icstis puts the boot in properly? Oh
yes. Big time. Kind of makes you long for the innocence of town meetings…
(see story above)

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