It’s not been a good week for terrestrial TV quizzes.

Along with Channel 5 getting the largest fine imposed (so far) by OFCOM for falsely reporting winners in a game they broadcast the Gambling Commission has reported that they have doubts around the free entry mechanism within the terrestrial broadcaster ‘games’ which are meant to stop them being gambling and subject to licensing and a requirement to pay 20% of the call revenues to charity.

Channel 5 may seek to appeal the whacking great fine of £300,000. All of 5’s programmes are made externally so they could have a case, the company that made Brainteaser (the show where the fraud took place) was the incredibly appropriate Cheetah (cheater get it?) part of the infamous Endemol empire.

You can find out what the Gambling Commission's current thinking on Participation TV is here.

Let’s play a QUIZ

Now regulation has been troubling me of late..

Looking at ITV it appears that regulation should be a fairly straightforward matter – the regulator being the body who grants the licence OFCOM – if the company fails to meet the terms of their licence OFCOM can fine them or in the extreme take away their licence.
But for participation the matter is not so clear cut, ITV Play uses premium rate calls so perhaps the regulator is ICSTIS?

Oh and some people say that the ITV Play games are actually a form of gambling so is it the gambling commission?
So is

a) OFCOM,
b) ICSTIS
or

c) The Gambling Commission ?

Answers to itvplaysurvey@btopenworld.com
Calls will not be charged and their may be a prize!

and the future of supermarket check out staff

Tesco want you to be your own cashier? Or 'Every little ** helps itself '.

Now I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Tesco, much as I feel about McDonalds I really admire the way the business is run and feel that many of the whingers who attack (both of) the organisation don’t fully get it. McDs is far from being intrinsically evil and caters for a desire in an efficient and reasonable manner as is Tesco’s; let’s face it they dealt with their recent petrol contamination issue in an exemplary fashion. But (and it’s a medium sized but) what is this idea that I was confronted with in my local Tesco Metro where you act as your own cashier and then pay with notes and coins through slots – I reckon it’s taking self service a bit too far and as identified here and also here might lead to further shrinkage.

Joost

Having started out rationing the number of people exposed to the then labelled 'Venice Project Joost have started another mini push sending reminders to the current beta trialists that they can send 2 invites to people who’ve got along fine and dandy without knowing much about this hyped up waste of bandwidth (I’ve passed on my two invites and’ll be interested in the reaction from those lucky folks).

Broadcast regulation

I tend to agree with today's Mail on Sunday article that OFCOM need waking up to the fact that as well as all their ' blue sky' thinking and generally patting themselves on the back they should actually indulge in a bit of regulation – however they squirm around they’ve been negligent on the matter of premium call TV and left it too much to ICSTIS who are not staffed at the level (numbers and calibre) to deal with this.

Great Site from Stumbled on

If you're interested in writing or how William Burroughs and David Bowie have used chance, take a look at this one.

media week- top stories

C4 sale?

The furore around Celebrity Big Brother has meant that there is once more talk about a possible sale of Channel 4, this may be an over reaction to one particularly unpleasant programme but the management at Channel 4 has not managed the situation well. OFCOM will be undertaking a look at the channels future and by making heavy investments channel 4 has distorted its financial position to indicate that it is having problems that it is not, while moving into radio and other non-core areas (themed lifestyle exhibitions spring to mind).

BBC licence fee

Although the BBC did not get all it had asked for the licence fee settlement is far from a disaster, there’s no danger of channels being shut and the management can try and contain some of the worst excesses that are part of the organisations culture. The change at the BBC continues with BBC resources expected to be sold this year along with earlier sales of Technology (Siemens) and Presentation (Red Bee) this has represented a move from the traditional state broadcaster to something much closer to a Commissioner/Publisher model (like Channel 4).

Sky

Today’s newspapers indicate that Bskyb may be losing its current CEO, James Murdoch who having got both HD and Broadband rolling out could be in the frame for a move to the USA, he’ll need though to be around to deal with the likely ramifications of the investigation around Sky’s purchase of a large part of ITV.

And on the Vinyl

Today a very influential LP is meandering along as I type Brian Eno's 'Ambient 1: Music for Airports' - not a Desert Island type Disc but nice to have playing along in a non-threatening way.