Friday, 9 March 2007

Endemol Et al....

Following this communication Five was contacted yesterday evening by Cheetah Television, a production subsidiary of Endemol UK and maker of Five’s afternoon quiz series, who raised an issue regarding this programme...........


Yet ANOTHER scandal involving a UK television company erupted into the public domain today when Five were forced to withdraw a phone in show and 'look into' all of their phone ins whether they are fake or not? Every channel now has had some sort of scandal attached over the past couple of weeks and WE the general public, have spent our hard earned money phoning in to competitions or attempt to speak to celebrities when there is absolutely no chance of succeeding as the shows would be recorded OR the winners already selected OR we would be told to ring yet another premium line after already ringing a premium line OR a person would be 'selected' and then told "Sorry you've not won this time, try again next time". The call rates vary and some are extremely OTT.


I am a big fan of Big Brother but this is another show where I have huge grievances. Endemol are the company behind this show and I've viewed the posts on forums bitch about Endemol and I am never one to follow the crowd and never join these particular threads. However, I cannot help feel it is time Endemol were put in the stocks for their treatment of the general public. Whilst we all have free will, many are duped into believing they HAVE TO call these high rate numbers to vote off contestants (who half way throught the week walk out after people have voted for them to go etc). BB have lost their sponser and not because of this nightmare but because of another nightmare of the so called 'racism row' which never was. How much longer that show can run is beyond me?


TV companies need to stand up and be responsible but so do WE. I've had my gripe about the former and now the latter must learn that they cannot always have something to blame! We live in a society where we do not take responsibility for our actions and it is about time we looked after ourselves. I was duped by BBC's Saturday cookery show at first but it soon hit me after a couple of weeks and James saying "We don't have time to take any calls today".....oh again James? Is this recorded? I didn't believe it was recored straight after the previous show though! I believed that when the BBC said that WE the public had equal chance to phone up and win the opportunity to be a guest on the show each week that was the truth.....Not the truth at all. So I was duped too. Other shows are easier to spot. Never phone up 20 times to a show which costs 75 pence a call. Utter madness but many people do.


TV companies need to clear up their acts and so do those people we need to learn from this too. Nothing is free.

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