Europe to end TV phone-in quizzes

By Simon Fluendy for MailOnline
Updated: 04:16 EST, 5 August 2007

 

Britain's beleaguered phone-in quiz show industry faces the axe thanks to an imminent court decision.

A European Court of Justice ruling could force the UK to treat many shows as advertising or teleshopping instead of entertainment.

That would undermine their viability since advertising is covered by far stricter rules than ordinary TV, with limited minutes allowed per hour on commercial services such as ITV, Channel 4 and Five.

Regulator Ofcom is also considering treating quizzes as advertising, but the ECJ may short-circuit the watchdog's consultation.

The European Court of Justice is considering whether an Austrian show called Quiz-Express is mainly aimed at entertaining the public or whether it is simply trying to suck in premium-rate calls from viewers trying to win prizes.

The Advocate General for the court has advised the judges that Quiz-Express should be classed as advertising. The court normally follows the Advocate's opinion.

Financial Mail started an investigation last year, but lying, cheating and fixing of quizzes and phone-ins have continued to rock the industry. Last week, Channel 4 said it was abandoning all for-profit phone-ins.

Ofcom is investigating about 20 cases of potential abuse including ITV1's Quizmania, The Mint and Make Your Play, Five's The Great Big British Quiz, FTN's Quiz Night Live, BBC's Smile, GMTV's Richard & Judy and digital channel Big Game TV. The court case could make it impossible to run dedicated quiz shows.

'ITV's £100m quiz shows broadcast on ITV1 would clearly be classified as advertising, which would make it hard to run them on public service TV and much more expensive to keep compliant with rules,' said an industry source.

If quiz segments of shows such as Richard & Judy were classified as advertising that would hit the economics of the programmes.

'A swathe of digital channels which exist only to promote sex chat lines or psychic services would instantly go off the air as all advertising of such things is banned,' he said.

Ofcom still thinks that its investigation is worthwhile. A source said: 'Even if the court follows the advice (of the Advocate) the judgment could range from a highly specific ruling with no wide effect to a sweeping ruling, which would hit every EU broadcaster.'

•Patrick Mahony, a Nottingham pensioner, has been awarded £858 by production company Endemol UK, which made Five's Brainteaser quiz.

Mahony threatened legal action against the company, claiming he ran up a huge phone bill calling the show, though he could not win since others unfairly used a computer program to make multiple free entries via the internet.

Endemol says there was no merit in Mahony's claim and that it made the payment without admitting liability to stop incurring much higher court costs.

Brainteaser has been withdrawn after a scandal that saw a dozen shows affected when production staff drew up fake shortlists of potential winners after no genuine winners emerged. Five was fined £300,000 by Ofcom.