Quiz Call
Contents |
Host
Various
Broadcast
Ostrich Media for Freeview, NTL, and Sky, August 2005 - 1 January 2007, for Five, Five USA, ? 2007 - 12 September 2009
Synopsis
Yet another premium-rate puzzle phone-in channel. What have we done to deserve this?
This was originally set up and run by a subsidary of Channel 4, but they sold it in 2006 just before the winds of change blew through the participation TV market. Channel 4 boss Kevin Lygo later said: "It looks like a marvellous judgement call, doesn't it?"
Though the vast majority of channels and programmes like this closed during 2007, Quiz Call was picked by the fickle finger of fate to survive. Although it stopped broadcasting on its own channel number at the start of 2007, by later that year the show returned, and was broadcasting for about eight hours per week on Five, and its digital off-shoot Five USA. This arrangement lasted until September 2009, when Five switched to televised roulette to fill the small hours of their schedule, and thus the curtain finally came down on one of the longest running quiz TV operations (although we should note their website suggests they intend to return).
Trivia
Two Quiz Call programmes were found guilty of breaching Ofcom's broadcasting code in March 2007. A Channel 4 programme featuring a game requiring very difficult mathematics was described as "easy" by the presenter. Another game, this time broadcast on five, was rapped when the category was "Things in Australia" and the on-screen clue was "Alice *******". The answer turned out to be "Alice Springs Camel Cup" which no viewer got correct. Ofcom said that the correct answer was "almost impossible" for callers to have considered.
See also
9Live review from Weaver's Week for a general idea of how channels like this work. (In fact, this one is run by the same people).
