O/T Disgraceful television (a long rant)

[The Camel]

I happened to watch a tv programme last night called "The Mint".

It was a quasi quiz show where viewers are asked to solve a puzzle and then phone a premium rate number and guess the answer live on television where they can win anything upwards of £20,000. (For some reason they changed how much you could win at various times of the night).

The quiz question was this: there were 3 balloons and wrtten inside them were "44" "80" and "ninety-six" and the legand "add the numbers". Not as easy as you may think. Various people guessed 220, 124, 16, 3 etc etc etc. In fact every possible combination of the numbers seemed to be guessed. Alll were wrong.

After a long time (I don't know how long I watched the chit but I guess 2 hours... I know I am a sad case but I really wanted to know the answer) they suddenly said. "We are only going to take 8 more calls on this puzzle". Ahhh at last I thought I was going to find out the answer. But no. Once 8 more guesses were given they announced "That's it for tonight, we will go back to this quiz in the future!". So, they get another huge number of saps paying 75p a call in a month's time or whenever to guess exactly the same numbers which were guessed last night.

On a huge number of levels this programme was disturbing and just plain wrong. The presenters kept saying "ooooh good guess" to wrong answers without giving any clue to work out the correct answer. They kept imploring the viewers to call now "Just think how sick you'll be if you know the right answer and someone else gets the 20 grand!". Plainly encouraging people to gamble (There is obviously no skill ionvolved in the game...it's just a glorifield lottery). How can the gaming board allow this nonsense yet if you miss the first hand of a poker tournament you are disqualified? And alteranates aren't allowed to play. Each caller was limited to 150 guesses! Thats £122.50! FFS! But the worst aspect of all was they never revealed the result and will open the quiz again at some later date "If you don't call now, you may not be watching when we come back to this puzzle and someone else will get the money!".

All in all I have never been so angry watching a television programme. How thiis genre haven't been banned is beyond me. It's an absolute disgrace and an ugly stain on British television.

End of rant.

[matt674]

If this is what i've got to look forward too when changing nappies at 2am then god help me!! 

So i take it you didnt get through with the right answer then Keith?

p.s. - is the answer not 31?

[ripple11]

Keith, this sort of utter rip off crap has been going a while on various channels.....Im suprised you havent stumbled accross it before....utter utter disgrace as you say.

[Graham C]

The ones that get me are those that say 'not all calls will get through, but you will be charged'

[boldie]

I happened to watch a tv programme last night called "The Mint".

It was a quasi quiz show where viewers are asked to solve a puzzle and then phone a premium rate number and guess the answer live on television where they can win anything upwards of £20,000. (For some reason they changed how much you could win at various times of the night).

The quiz question was this: there were 3 balloons and wrtten inside them were "44" "80" and "ninety-six" and the legand "add the numbers". Not as easy as you may think. Various people guessed 220, 124, 16, 3 etc etc etc. In fact every possible combination of the numbers seemed to be guessed. Alll were wrong.

After a long time (I don't know how long I watched the chit but I guess 2 hours... I know I am a sad case but I really wanted to know the answer) they suddenly said. "We are only going to take 8 more calls on this puzzle". Ahhh at last I thought I was going to find out the answer. But no. Once 8 more guesses were given they announced "That's it for tonight, we will go back to this quiz in the future!". So, they get another huge number of saps paying 75p a call in a month's time or whenever to guess exactly the same numbers which were guessed last night.

On a huge number of levels this programme was disturbing and just plain wrong. The presenters kept saying "ooooh good guess" to wrong answers without giving any clue to work out the correct answer. They kept imploring the viewers to call now "Just think how sick you'll be if you know the right answer and someone else gets the 20 grand!". Plainly encouraging people to gamble (There is obviously no skill ionvolved in the game...it's just a glorifield lottery). How can the gaming board allow this nonsense yet if you miss the first hand of a poker tournament you are disqualified? And alteranates aren't allowed to play. Each caller was limited to 150 guesses! Thats £122.50! FFS! But the worst aspect of all was they never revealed the result and will open the quiz again at some later date "If you don't call now, you may not be watching when we come back to this puzzle and someone else will get the money!".

All in all I have never been so angry watching a television programme. How thiis genre haven't been banned is beyond me. It's an absolute disgrace and an ugly stain on British television.

End of rant.

lol...I remember reading something about this program a while ago. Basically they were investigated because they couldn't come up with a proper explanation as to how they got their end nr. This was after a viewer complained and demanded to be shown the result (because they never tell you WHEN they will get back to this quiz you have no idea whether they actually do give the result) They then had a couple of mathematicians work on one of their puzzles..and TRY to come up with the nr the program makers had given them..and they found "it was impossible to do so if done in the manner described in the question, even for someone with a fair degree of mathematical knowledge is takes a big effort to come up with this nr at all" So they'd ask to see the calculation the program makers had used BUT the company said "we can't give that to anyone as it might give people an unfair advantage"

man..how this sort of stuff is legal is beyond me.

BTW..the stuff in quotes are not exact quotes but fairly similar.

[The Camel]

If this is what i've got to look forward too when changing nappies at 2am then god help me!! 

So i take it you didnt get through with the right answer then Keith?

p.s. - is the answer not 31?

31 was one of the answers I came up with. Obviously wrong if it had any logic involved!

The only mildly amusing thing about the whole sorry affair was that every 15 minutes or so some poor soul came on and guessed 220. As though noone in the previous hour could possibly have added the 3 numbers correctly.

Watching these programmes is going to be very dangerous in the near future as Jake is 13 months now and I don't want to swear in front of him! And I confess alot of vulgarity was passing my lips as I sat through this torture last night!

[AndrewT]

I went through the same experience as you Keith the first time I saw this. There was some puzzle showing some poker chips and the question was 'How many chips?'. OK, I thought, that's badly worded - do they mean the number of physical chips, or the total value of the chips? Someone phoned up and gave one of these answers. 'Ah, they must be looking for the other one', I thought. A couple of callers later and someone gave the other correct answer. 'Sorry, good guess, but not right'.

'Eh?' I thought. Maybe I counted wrong? I triple checked - those were the only two possible answers. I then watched in dumbfounded amazement as, over the course of the next hour, over half the callers gave one of these two 'correct' answers. At no point did the blonde ball of fluff that was presenting pass any comment that people were giving the same wrong answers. Was she an idiot or complicit in the fraud?

Of course, no one got the answer and they moved onto another puzzle. Callers are charged 75p for each call whether they get through or not. There are passages of the programme where five minutes will go by without them taking a call - all the while people at home are racking up the 75ps in order to give their answer - an answer which, in their view, cannot possibly be wrong.

There seem to be about four of these channels on Sky now, and ITV seem to have it on every night. Of course, it's a goldmine for the TV company - very little overheads. The channel (in this case ITV) are happy as this is helping to stem the lack of cash they are getting from advertising (because no one is watching their shitty programmes these days).

Not only are these programmes fraud, but they are so obviously fraud that I am amazed there hasn't been more of an outcry.

[The Camel]

Keith, this sort of utter rip off crap has been going a while on various channels.....Im suprised you havent stumbled accross it before....utter utter disgrace as you say.

Normally when I'm channel surfing if I hit upoin any type of quiz show it is whisked away in 0.00001 seconds so I've never endured this before.

[matt674]

surely at the end of the day anyone with half an ounce of common sense can see that these programs are a rip-off and will steer well clear of them..................

Just as they do with the European Lottery Emails, the Nigerian bank account money making scheme and the Barclays Server reboot please send us your account number email!! 

[The Camel]

I went through the same experience as you Keith the first time I saw this. There was some puzzle showing some poker chips and the question was 'How many chips?'. OK, I thought, that's badly worded - do they mean the number of physical chips, or the total value of the chips? Someone phoned up and gave one of these answers. 'Ah, they must be looking for the other one', I thought. A couple of callers later and someone gave the other correct answer. 'Sorry, good guess, but not right'.

'Eh?' I thought. Maybe I counted wrong? I triple checked - those were the only two possible answers. I then watched in dumbfounded amazement as, over the course of the next hour, over half the callers gave one of these two 'correct' answers. At no point did the blonde ball of fluff that was presenting pass any comment that people were giving the same wrong answers. Was she an idiot or complicit in the fraud?

Of course, no one got the answer and they moved onto another puzzle. Callers are charged 75p for each call whether they get through or not. There are passages of the programme where five minutes will go by without them taking a call - all the while people at home are racking up the 75ps in order to give their answer - an answer which, in their view, cannot possibly be wrong.

There seem to be about four of these channels on Sky now, and ITV seem to have it on every night. Of course, it's a goldmine for the TV company - very little overheads. The channel (in this case ITV) are happy as this is helping to stem the lack of cash they are getting from advertising (because no one is watching their shitty programmes these days).

Not only are these programmes fraud, but they are so obviously fraud that I am amazed there hasn't been more of an outcry.

Bingo! You've used the word which I was searching for while the steam was pouring out of my ears.

Fraud.

That's the simple explanation for what I witnessed last night.

[Poppet7]

Those shows drive me mad 

[ripple11]

the problem is Matt, is that these shows pick on the poor and desperate,(and maybe drunk!).....not us with a couple of brain cells,....apparantly The Mint takes 100k a night !

[TightEnd]

The OFT is currently investigating these types of programmes and I have heard several radio investigations into them too

A complete rip off, pandering to the sad gullibility of many people.

I would expect tougher regulation, possibly price caps etc before long

ITV however, to put a different viewpoint across, would be really in trouble without them....its viewing figures and advertising rates are down and income from these programmes is subsidising drama budgets etc

ITV is rumoured to be the subject of takeover due to years of poor amagement and underperformance

[booder]

surely at the end of the day anyone with half an ounce of common sense can see that these programs are a rip-off and will steer well clear of them..................

Just as they do with the European Lottery Emails, the Nigerian bank account money making scheme and the Barclays Server reboot please send us your account number email!! 

i believe Julian is a big fan of these quizzes

[julian]

i gotta get that number,
i got three answers,
one of thems gotta be right, right?