Government response to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry on call TV quiz shows

Download or read book Government response to the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee inquiry on call TV quiz shows written by Great Britain: Department for Culture, Media and Sport and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2007-03-26 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A report by the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee (HCP 72, session 2006-07, ISBN 9780215032249), published in January 2007, raised a number of concerns regarding the lack of fairness and transparency in the operation of Call TV quiz shows. These quiz shows encourage viewers to take part in live broadcasts by sending in answers either by a text message or by calling a premium rate telephone service, with the broadcaster keeping a proportion of the call revenue. The Committee's report raised a number of concerns over the lack of fairness and transparency in the operation of these shows in relation to consumer protection and concluded that they should constitute gaming under the Gambling Act 2005. This document sets out the Government's response to the Committee's report, in which the Government notes its concern that recent reports which have highlighted continued failures in the operation of premium rate services across a range of interactive programmes have damaged public confidence in broadcasting. ICSTIS (the industry-funded regulatory body for all premium rate charged telecommunications services) will introduce a stronger regime of monitoring and inspection to improve regulation of the sector, whilst Ofcom (the independent regulator and competition authority for the UK communications industries) has announced that, in addition to investigating specific complaints, it will be undertaking an inquiry into the systematic failures of compliance in this sector.