ITV Play goes off the air!

*INCOMING RANT*

Appologies since this is strictly old news, but it hasn't come to my attention till now.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/ukfs_news/...00/6420885.stm

Does anyone actually call up this so called channel? Or any of the others for that matter? When I bought a digibox, in anticipation of all those lovely shiny new channels, as touted by the adverts was a thing of wonder, how angry can you imagine I was when I found out that at least half the channels on offer were filled with this, the lowest form of w*n*y arse imaginable. My anger was further added to when I discovered that after a certain time of night, ITV changed over to ITV play.

Now I think that there is something quite ethically dubious about the whole business. They might have say, a wordsearch, where you need to identify several words, then if you feel lucky, call up on a premium rate line (normally 75p/call) and give your answer, and if you win, you get £500, easy you may think? Well it turns out that even though the presenter in the studio is filling time, and giving the impression that no one is calling, they might even put a countdown clock on the screen to drum up more calls, and still if you called in, your call wouldn't be taken by the presenter, and you have still spent your 75p, and been glad you had value for money!

The accountants project that ITV play will make £20m this year. And no wonder!

I find it depressing that so many people are stupid enough to think that they might win something. And I thought that the National Lottery was a voulantary tax on stupidity!

The most irksome thing though is that the quantity of stupid people who keep the likes of ITV play going are cluttering up the TV bandwidth, and preventing me from being provided with the programmes I actually want to watch, rather than this low rent, populist drivel for the brain dead.

Apparently there are checks and balances in place to limit any one person's number of calls down to a mere 200/day, in the hope of saving the stupid from themselves, and preventing them from becoming adicted. The mind boggles!

George Orwell wrote in 1984 that "If there is any hope, then it lies with the proles." From what I have seen, then there is NO hope for society!

Channel 5 have also suspended all their interactive progamming following news that Endemol (them again) have been faking winners' details (story)

I've no problem with quiz programmes IF they're straight and people know the odds and therefore the risks, but it's becoming increasingly clear that many of them are as bent as a nine-bob note.

Michael Grade's speech yesterday seemed to offer no hope that ITV would be permanantly canning its quizzes anytime soon, they're an integral part of their businessplan. I just hope that these scandals are enough to make the public wise up and boycott them, but sadly I fear that won't be the case.

Good evening and welcome to "Spot The Braincell" thirty minutes of cheerful ritual humiliation of the old and greedy.

John Cleese: Good evening madame and your name is?

Mrs Scum: Yes Michael

JC: Jolly good Hahahahaha and what is your name?

MS: I go to church regular

JC Yes I see hahahahahaha and what prize do you have your eye on tonight Mrs Scum?

MS: I don't like darkies

JC Hahahahaha She doesn't like darkies Hahahahahaha.............WHO DOES?!

Talk about life imitating art eh folks ;)

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Originally Posted by oily oaf

Talk about life imitating art eh folks ;)

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I must admit I've been waiting for the day when Ant & Dec present "Celebrity **** an Ape" on ITV1... :dozey:

However when the rabid capitalist part of my brain kicks in, it secretly envies those who thought up this business opportunity, as exploiting those who literally have more cash than sense has always been an ambition of mine, because if you really are that obtuse, then you deserve to be exploited by those smarter than you.

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Originally Posted by Dave Brockman

I must admit I've been waiting for the day when Ant & Dec present "Celebrity **** an Ape" on ITV1... :dozey:

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It's already been done mate.
Surely you remember that Channel 4 "fly on the wall" docu drama "At Home With The Commentators" when hidden cameras were concealed in Richard Keys' bedroom and he was caught going at it hammer and tongs with Dame Judy Dench :(

I wouldn't have minded but when he got to the laughing stroke he started bawling out "It's in there!" and "What a shot!"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6431063.stm

Hopefully it means the days of phone in quizzes are numbered!

It would be good if OFCOM went through with it's proposal so that sections of programmes featuring phone in quizes were treated as advertising, and thus subject to the usual restrictions of number of minutes per hour.

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Originally Posted by J4MIE

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6431063.stm

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They should have cut me off, they should have cut me off straight away. Instead of letting me run up this phone bill so high they should have cut me straight off.

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:laugh: Yes, that's right, blame somebody else :dozey:

Having said that there is a good point here, if your phone bill is usually £20 and all of a sudden it's gone up to several thousand in a matter of days the phone company should at least contact you to make sure you know of the situation. After all it's not in their own interests to give someone a £9,000 bill they cannot pay.

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Originally Posted by Kneeslider

Does anyone actually call up this so called channel?

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Each day it makes £200,000 in revenue.
At £1 per call, (and taking into account that of that £1, 15p goes to the Government as VAT, and the phone company takes around 25p) that means there must be an average of 14,000 calls per hour.