TV Cheats
Posted on March 18, 2007
Filed Under What's New |
There’s a scandal bubbling up over British television companies cheating their viewers and I think itraises issues beyond probity.
The scandal - the BBC and ITV companies including Channel 4 have used telephone phone-in competitions in unscrupulous ways, having viewers phone in to pre-recorded programmes, overcharging on call charges, and even faking the winner, in one case (the BBC).
TV companies around the world use these phone-ins to top up income. The scandal focuses on honesety/dishonesty when it should really be about the purpose of television. Television companies have been built on the back of monopolies granted by license. The licenses are not simply a prescription for making money. Competitions belong in casinos and betting offices. Television programmes belong on the TV set.
People do better when they are focused and for the past decade TV has been too focused on turning the medium into one big competition. They’ve done it very well.
Programmes with titles like the Top 11 comedy programmes, the funniest one thousand clips, Aunty’s one million bloomers…. all of life is becoming a stupid contest with a premium rate phone call attached. It’s a way of pretending that TV is interactive and now we know the truth. It was dishonest as well as morally and artistically brankrupt.
These are organisations that then bring their viewers the nightly news, current affairs investigations and political discussion, proving that you really can’t have it all, credibility, contests, and skimming the customer were never going to mix.
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