England’s Channel4 Suspends Phone-In Games

Sorry for the lack of any updates recently.  There has literally been no actual news the past few days, but we did find something.  We’ll do a feature on some of the pilot rules for the new Temptation this weekend.

BBC News announced that Channel4, the British network that airs Deal or No Deal, is suspending their phone in games after many recent problems have been exposed; most recently, a competition on the Richard & Judy show urged people to continue to spend money and phone in after the winners had been picked.  Sounds a tiny bit like the clock on Playmania, doesn’t it?  Deal or No Deal is said to continue the game, though, with profits going to charity.  However, one has to wonder if they are continuing this for now because they already taped episodes for the new season with the plug in the middle of the show.  I’d be interested to see if they get rid of it with the most recently taped episodes.

Situations like this could be easily avoided with a lawyer on the set like ours.  However, how long until certain organizations begin to probe the US phone-in games.  Interestingly the only shows that have the text games anymore are Deal or No Deal and 1 VS 100.  Shows like Playmania just need to take special care that nothing shady goes on.  For shady, see the video we posted a few days ago.