Call-in competition

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Call-in competitions (also quiz TV or quiz radio ) are competitions broadcast on the radio in which viewers or listeners can take part in guessing or quiz games via telephone value-added services. Call-in competitions are games of chance that, according to current case law , do not fall under the gaming monopoly within the meaning of Section 284 of the Criminal Code (unauthorized staging of a game of chance) due to the low stakes .

offer

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
RTL II RTL Super RTL
9Live
Sat.1 & Kabel one
ProSieben
sixx
BTV4U
NICK , Comedy Central and VIVA
Tele 5
The fourth The fourth
ATV
Austria 9
Star TV Star TV
FTL Germany
Family TV
Hello TV
Sport 1
Coal countdown, BB radio
Folx TV
Turbo quiz, antenna MV
Cash quiz, Radio Energy
freenet shopping
  • still running
  • set

    • Until 2011

    Initially, these call-in competitions were offered in Germany by RTL II ( Call-tv ), then by the television broadcaster 9Live , which specializes in them . In the meantime, other television stations (including Sat.1 , ProSieben , kabel eins until 2011, as well as Sport1 , Das Vierte , Tele 5 , until 2008 NICK , Comedy Central and VIVA and until 2007 the RTL Group channels ) had adopted the format mostly in the night time . From June to December 2003, the controversial Baden-Württemberg broadcaster BTV4U was very successful as a specialized call-in competition broadcaster and developed numerous new call-in variants. Many former BTV4U employees then worked for 9Live, Sonnenklar TV and the Mass Response Service in Vienna.

    So-called value-added telephone services in connection with competitions have also gained in importance as an additional source of income for radio . Only at first glance they are games of skill. Since chance plays a much larger role, according to a ruling by the Freiburg Regional Court - due to the low stakes - it is legal games of chance .

    In Switzerland , competitions are only allowed if participation in the competitions is also possible in a way that does not generate any money for the competition organizer. In Switzerland, for example, viewers can take part free of charge via the Internet, WAP or postcard. In Switzerland, the program Swissquiz and Swissquiz 2Night ran in parallel on the channels Star TV , 3+ , VIVA Switzerland and U1 TV during the day and night for several hours. The programs were produced by mass response Service GmbH in Vienna. The channel Star TV took over the 9Live program for some time during the night. After a critical report by the program Kassensturz on Swiss television in 2010, practically all call-in programs in German-speaking Switzerland have disappeared.

    In Austria - in addition to the above-mentioned channels from Germany - there are call-in competitions on ATV and Puls 4 . In 2005, the ORF also had a corresponding broadcast during the night, but stopped it again after protests.

    Since 2004 9Live has been producing for Channel 4 and later for Five from Great Britain . In mid-September, 9Live started a four-hour program window from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. on the Arabic TV channel mLive. The station broadcast its program via Eutelsat and Arabsat in more than 22 countries (including Syria , Jordan , Iraq , Kuwait , Tunisia , Morocco , Egypt , Algeria ).

    On May 31, 2011, the last game show took place on the channel 9Live before the channel ended live operation from the studio. At the same time, ProSiebenSat.1 Media AG gave up the production of call-in quiz formats for its programs. Up until August 9, 2011, 9Live broadcast repeats of German and US series before the station was finally switched off. Except for the digital cable, the frequency of the transmitter has been replaced by “ sixx ”. Due to declining revenues in all call-in shows, these also gradually disappeared from German television.

    Since 2011

    After 9Live ended, there was originally only the Sport Quiz on Sport 1, which was broadcast Monday to Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and on Saturdays. Since 2015 there have also been night editions, which completely replaced the morning editions in 2016.

    From December 19, 2012 until the end of broadcasting in 2013, there were call-in formats on the FTL Germany station . In 2014 there were two more call-in programs on the Austrian channel Hallo TV and on the Swiss channel Star TV, but these were discontinued after a short time. From September 2013 to May 2018, the so-called “Folx Quiz” was broadcast daily on the Austrian folk music and hit station Folx TV . From December 8, 2018 to February 9, 2019, the freenet shopping channel owned by freenet AG broadcast the program “Geldregen”.

    Participation and costs

    Regardless of whether callers are put through to the moderator or whether they are only directed to a tape announcement, the relevant German broadcasters pay EUR 0.50 per call from the Deutsche Telekom landline or EUR 0.70 per call from Austria. The sender earns a minimum of 0.25 euros to a maximum of 0.32 euros per call.

    Although only people aged 18 and over are allowed to call, the broadcaster can also broadcast its program during the day at times relevant to the protection of minors. There is no age-related access control , as is required in arcades and casinos . From a technical point of view, access control to the TV game offer would be possible through access authorization systems (cf. youth protection access control on the pay-TV channel Sky ).

    Sweepstakes types

    The possible cash prizes of several 100 euros to several 1000 euros are offset by the use of an increased connection fee for a telephone call or an SMS via a value-added service number .

    In the past, different, at first glance simple puzzle variants with display boards or faded-in still images (“Count all animals”) were often presented in the television sector, but the solutions were sometimes difficult to understand. This called the state media authorities on the plan, which urged the organizers to create and above all to comply with a voluntary commitment. As a result, the development went towards puzzles that were actually easy to solve, but which seem difficult at first glance and are presented accordingly by the moderator.

    Often there are also games in which the audience is asked to guess words that have a given part of the word (e.g. "Box ...") in common. The terms guessed at the beginning (e.g. boxing fan, boxing match) often differ from the rest of the solutions sought, which are often less common , sometimes not even in the Duden dictionary (e.g. boxing authority, boxing office, boxing grease, boxing stronghold, boxing boom, boxing guard , Boxing birthday cake).

    In games in which a desired word has to be formed from a certain set of predetermined letters, the letters are often arranged in such a way that when simply reading a word from right to left, a supposedly known word arises that is, however, misspelled or one Represents neologism and is therefore not permitted as a solution.

    In arithmetic problems, Roman numerals or written out digits to be read backwards must also be taken into account, depending on the task.

    Audience motivation

    Moderators, such as Alida-Nadine Kurras or Jürgen Milski , known from Big Brother , have the task of motivating viewers to call.

    Among other things, they encourage you to make chargeable calls by shouting loudly and suggesting a high probability of winning from sometimes very high sums of money. The actual conversations with the callers are carried out by the employees in the sender's call center .

    opportunities

    This article or section needs revision: This section is extremely out of date. 9Live stopped operating 7 years ago - Resqusto ( discussion ) 21:56, 15 Jun. 2018 (CEST)
    Please help to improve it and then remove this flag.

    A caller seldom succeeds in winning a high price, because there is always a chance of participation, but this is extremely small and in some cases the puzzles are barely transparent (see above). With the higher profits, it is not uncommon for calls not to be put through for several hours. Usually you will hear an announcement such as:

    "Hello! Thank you for calling us. Unfortunately, this time you were out of luck. Please try again. This call costs you 50 cents from the Deutsche Telekom network. "

    - 9Live tape announcement

    A supposedly higher chance of participation is suggested by allegedly "activating" several telephone lines at the same time. It often remains unclear how many lines there are in total or that these lines are only activated at a certain point in time.

    The consumer advice center has determined that every 25th caller at 9Live has the chance to give their name and telephone number in order to take part in the quiz on the show later.

    Today, the game mode line hot button is usually used . The caller should be connected directly to the moderator when they meet a certain "line". However, the probability of hitting one of the activated lines is low. Tele 5 is currently the only German-speaking broadcaster to provide information in a treadmill about the actual probability and put it at 1: 10,000 to 1: 300,000.

    criticism

    The advertised total winnings are often only played out if an additional game of chance is won. The chances of this are usually in the per mille range. Until the voluntary commitment in 2007 (see above), the broadcasters usually waived any explanation of the correct solution. Apparently randomly displayed “countdowns” suggest that a caller wins when they run out. However, the game usually continues in a row by fading in further "countdowns" or assuring "jackpot winnings". Various announcements by the moderators give the impression that no one is calling the broadcaster at the moment and therefore the individual chances of winning are increased. So has z. For example, the Rhineland-Palatinate State Center for Media and Communication (LMK) objected to two issues of the Sat.1 broadcast Quiz Night , which has since been discontinued , because viewers were put under time pressure by misleading information.

    The show Kassensturz of SF DRS has made repeated irregularities in the broadcast SwissQuizz about, especially fake calls, blocked lines, profit reduction or transitioning a call with the correct solution. The producer of the show, the company Primavera-TV or Mass Response, has consistently denied the allegations, but had to admit errors in at least one case. A identified caller admitted to Kassensturz that she called under different names. Employees of the quiz show have also confirmed irregularities in relation to Kassensturz.

    In 2011, the creators of the Belgian satirical program Basta succeeded in smuggling a mole into the call-in-TV production Quizzit, which is broadcast by the private channels VTM and 2BE , for half a year . Maxime De Winne (actually a theater actor) employed as a presenter collected information like an investigative journalist with a hidden camera and microphones, which uncovered the illegal activities of the two private broadcasters. Immediately after this information became known, both VTM and 2BE removed all call-in programs from the current program. The State Secretary for the Coordination of Fraud Prevention, Carl Devlies, also announced that the laws on call-in competitions would be significantly tightened.

    Investigations in Austria

    Investigations into the topic of call-ins have been taking place in Austria since October 2014, in which the Mass Response Service (MRS), which was temporarily owned by Telekom Austria , is involved. Three suspects were arrested, two of them in Germany and one in Austria. The Vienna Public Prosecutor's Office has been investigating commercial fraud and aid for years. So far, all allegations have been denied in principle, but there have now been confessions. According to the arrest warrant, the callers hung in expensive queues, while fake callers whose phone numbers had been programmed in advance were organized and deployed for months. These decoys are said to have received 500 euros for this, while the officially advertised prize was not paid out. Thus, from May 2004 to July 2005, more than 360,000 euros in fictitious prizes were collected. According to the expert opinion, there were separate accounts for the fake winnings and the fake callers would have received instructions in a chat room for the role they should play under different names. In order not to attract attention in the program, they also gave wrong answers or hung up for a change.

    According to the now arrested German SM, who and his company produced the first call-in-show in Austria for the television station for ATV , this principle of bogus callers had existed since 2004. He had been an employee of the TV studio Marx Media Vienna (MMV ) explains that he needs people who are “available for a fee during the broadcast” in order to be able to give pre-announced answers to the quiz questions when switched to the studio. After winning, they were supposed to "express their joy", while real callers were not put through. The goal was to increase the number of calls. How high the costs of the callers caught in the queue were is still being determined. The damage caused by the deception should exceed a total of 24 million euros. This came about by suggesting to the callers, despite being on hold, that they could be connected to the studio, which was technically prevented.

    From 2009, according to the arrest warrant, voice distorters were even used because critics of the programs noticed the similarity of the winning votes. This was noticed by the critic Marc Doehler at the former station 9Live in the same year, when the normally male constant caller Tobias was unexpectedly put through with a disguised female voice and immediately hung up. The moderator Robin Bade was then unsettled. In his hour-long film Call and Lose on YouTube, he pointed out the grievances in call-in programs in Austria and Switzerland.

    Mass Response Service , for its part, filed a complaint in 2011 and joined the proceedings as a private party because it felt harmed, as its current owner and managing director, Franz Pichler, emphasizes.

    legality

    The rules set by the broadcasters ensure that only a few winnings have to be paid out. Open fraudulent activities such as secretly blocked lines or a change in the solution while the game is running can not be detected by the monitoring of the state media authorities , which currently only monitor the broadcast program on a random basis and often only after the viewer has requested it. Even competition law tests have failed in favor of the organizers.

    In Germany, a pointed Senate of the Higher Regional Court of Munich , a temporary injunction of the Association of Social competition from December 22, 2005, because of unfair competition had complained against 9Live (u. A. Forbidden gambling, bluff above the actual profit view). The judges justified the judgment with the fact that every participant who was only halfway sensible knew that there was only ever one chance to become the winner of one of the competitions offered by a phone call. In addition, it is clear to the viewers that they have to pay a fee in the form of telephone charges to participate.

    The judgment does not deal with the implementation of sweepstakes, which many sides consider dubious and non-transparent for the viewer, nor does it take into account the probability of being able to participate or win one of the offers (e.g. chargeable telephone preselection, game rules). The winning quotas in relation to the actual callers were also not examined.

    Popular culture

    The song Neun Live by the Wise Guys satirically addresses the criticism of call-in programs.

    In their song Bettina, published in 2008, please wear something , the German hip-hop group Fettes Brot dealt with call-in programs in which lightly dressed women are supposed to moderate and encourage calls.

    In his program Kalkofes Mattscheibe , Oliver Kalkofe repeatedly covered call-in shows with biting mockery due to their design.

    Holger Kreymeier from Fernsehkritik-TV regularly showed excerpts from various call-in programs in his Internet TV magazine of the same name in cooperation with the Berlin operator of a call-in-critical Internet forum Marc Doehler and criticized this format harshly.

    In the night loop of the children's channel , Bernd das Brot also acted as the moderator of a call-in-show parody with a simple question and absurd telephone costs.

    References

    Individual evidence

    1. ↑ Turbo quiz . In: Antenne MV - Turboquiz . ( antennemv.de [accessed on April 2, 2017]).
    2. ↑ AZ: 3 S 308/04, May 12, 2005 ( Memento of the original of February 10, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mehrwertdiensteundrecht.de
    3. ↑ Call-in broadcast on ORF under pressure to justify , IRIS Merlin 2005-6: 8/12
    4. ↑ 9Live and Atlas Interactive start Call TV Windows in 22 Arabian countries ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mlive.tv
    5. ↑ Call-in on FTL TV, citv.nl, accessed on April 10, 2015.
    6. ↑ Homepage of the program Geldregen, accessed on March 4, 2019.
    7. ↑ Conditions of the Telekom for 0137 service numbers ( Memento of the original of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / mwl.t-com.de
    8. ↑ Participation rules from 9Live  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.9live.de  
    9. ↑ Rules of the State Media Authorities June 19, 2007 ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.alm.de
    10. ↑ westline.de ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.westline.de
    11. ↑ Misleading: Sat.1- “Quiz Night” objected
    12. ↑ Kassensturz broadcast, article from March 16, 2010 ( memento of the original from March 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / videoportal.sf.tv
    13. ↑ Kassensturz broadcast, article from June 24th, 2008  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / videoportal.sf.tv  
    14. ↑ Mole presenter drove TV quizzes against the wall
    15. ↑ 24 million damage from profit shows, derStandard.at, October 16, 2014.
    16. ↑ Renate Graber: Three arrests because of dubious TV competitions, derStandard.at, October 11, 2014
    17. ↑ 9Live - Tobias Fake or Fiktion - City.nl, uploaded on October 19, 2014.
    18. ↑ Resolution of December 22, 2005, AZ 6 W 2181/05 ( Memento of the original of December 13, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mehrwertdiensteundrecht.de
    19. ↑ Wise Guys: Neun Live ( Memento of the original from April 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / wiseguys.de
    20. ↑ Dennis Kayser: From someone who undressed to be a star . Spiegel Online, February 29, 2008. Retrieved June 6, 2010.

    literature

    • Broder Kleinschmidt: Interactive competition shows on TV - an illegal gambling event? In: Multimedia and Law . 2004, p. 654-658 .
    • Daniel Eichmann, Thorsten Sörup: The telephone competition - Between criminal liability and competition violation . In: Multimedia and Law . No. 3 , 2002, p. 142-146 .
    • Joachim Eiden: "When oxen give milk" - TV competition and deceptive term . In: Journal for international criminal law dogmatics . 2009, p. 59–67 ( zis-online.com [PDF; 138 kB ]).
    • Manfred Hecker, Markus Ruttig: "Try it again" - telephone competitions on the radio using value-added service numbers and their assessment according to the StGB and the new UWG . In: Commercial legal protection and copyright . No. 5 , 2005, p. 399-398 .
    • Stefan Oehme: Call-in shows on German television - fraud as an everyday form of entertainment? In: Legal worksheets . No. 1 , 2009, p. 39-43 .
    • Norbert Wimmer : Games without limits? - Need for reform in the supervision of TV competitions . In: Multimedia and Law . No. 7 , 2007, p. 417-423 .

    Web links