GMTV Phone-In Quiz Scam
THIS question to viewers of GMTV.
Did you enter the phone-in competition because:
A) You have been warned off calling the emergency services and “nice-sounding” Gary at the pizza delivery firm and enjoy speaking to your last remaining friends, GMTV presenters Andrew Castle and Kate Garraway?
B) You know that the answer to the tie-break question ‘What colour is red?” is not ‘blue’ and not ‘yellow’ so is most likely to be ‘red’
C) You thought you could win and did not realise that the question, more loaded than George Bush at a frat party, is a scam?
The answer is C.
As the Sun reports (“BIGGEST TELLY QUIZ ‘SWIZ’ YET”), GMTV viewers are said to have spent £45,000 a day entering a contest only half who had spent around £.180 a time had any chance of winning.
According to evidence unearthed by the BBC TV show Panorama, the winner is picked well before the contest ends. (GMTV appears on broadcast rival ITV.)
Estimates put the GMTV haul at £10million-a-year, and the scam has been running for four years.
“GMTV £40M PHONE SCAM,” announces the Mirror’s front page.
But before readers besiege GMTV’s officers and turn over to watch In The Night Garden – the trippy children’s TV of choice for people on prescription and recreational medications – they should know the con was hidden from “station bosses”.
The phone contests are run by Opera Interactive Technology. And Panorama claims Mark Nuttall, sales director of said company, reportedly sent an email to staff saying: “Make sure they never find out you are picking the winners early!” The investigation also claims Nuttall’s email was sent to his company chairman Gary Corbett.
For its part Opera tells the paper of its own preliminary investigation: “The conclusion is that there is not a shred of truth in any of the allegation.”
No word is heard from Mr Nuttall, and readers are invited to guess (for free) what he is doing now.
Is he: A) Laughing it all off as an honest mistake by Panorama; B) Consulting lawyers; C) reading the Mail’s front-page headline: “MILLIONS DUPED BY ‘FIXED’ PHONE-IN”?
The institutionalised, suggestible, medicated and other GMTV viewers are invited to press your keypads now…
April 23rd, 2007 at 11:17 pm
[...] Read full article. [...]
April 24th, 2007 at 8:35 am
[...] “preliminary investigation”. The company which runs GMTV phone quizzes, and whose executive Mark Nuttall is said to have issued an email telling staff “Make sure they never find out you are picking the [...]
April 27th, 2007 at 1:08 am
The game show scam is a serious matter - it is effectively direct theft from the public, who have a right to expect a far higher standard of ethics from a supposedly respectable TV station.
A while ago I watched one of these game shows and carefully noted the answers given; it did not make any logical sense, except that occasional ‘winners’ came up at strategically useful moments. Whether they were real winners I have no idea. I also experimented (once!) with phoning in and in ten calls never got through to the studio, though the amount on my phone bill was significant. I came to the conclusion then, which was a long time before the furore broke out, that these games were unsound.
Now, to conclude, I believe legally that the right decision would be for the DPP to take out a criminal case against GMTV and I firmly believe it should be possible for heads to roll. I also believe that these game show operators should either be forced to make the games fair or that the whole thing should be outlawed.
Like most of these things, it is the poor and more vulnerable members of society who are duped by these unscrupulous organisations.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:34 am
For the last two months Opera Interactive (Barbados) Ltd have been running a call/text-in competition called Barbados Lucky Numbers.
The ‘winning’ number has remained the same and NO winners names have been published.
One of the directors of the company was Gary Corbett up until a couple of weeks ago.
June 26th, 2008 at 7:49 am
Can someone tell me WHY, GMTV has again started up their Game shows?