Not so easy

Channel 4's Neil Pepin quite rightly states that this ruling is very likely to have a major impact on broadcasters that rely heavily on premium phone line revenue which must account for many of the smaller digital satellite channels. And unsurprisingly this clampdown is courtesy of the Gambling Commission not Ofcom; the latter is more concerned about broadcasters misleading viewers as opposed to the cost involved.

As things stand at the moment, easy quiz questions lead to more people participating in competitions so if the questions become harder, fewer people in turn will risk a premium rate call (or text message) on a wrong answer. Therefore the price of the call would have to be raised to obtain the same amount of revenue as before, but the higher price would be an even larger disincentive for casual participation.

This ruling may lead to an increase in potentially dubious attempts to raise revenue though other forms of 'interactivity', but even so this means that broadcasters cannot lazily raise as much revenue as before. Maybe we might even see 'better' programmes on mainstream channels as a side effect, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.