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GMTV Phone-In Quiz Scam

by | 23rd, April 2007

gmtv.jpgTHIS 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…



Posted: 23rd, April 2007 | In: Tabloids Comments (5) | TrackBack | Permalink