Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
MR DAVID
BROOK, MS
CAROLYN MAZE,
MR FREDERIK
FLECK AND
MR WILL
HOWELL-CORNES
28 NOVEMBER 2006
Q60 Mr Hall: Is it true that at certain
times of the day calls do not get through deliberately?
Mr Brook: We do not operate that
policy.
Q61 Mr Hall: Is that the same for
you?
Mr Fleck: Yes, and can I add to
that that, on average, every 75 seconds a call is into the studio,
so if you still want to talk to people, we could not do it faster
than that.
Q62 Mr Hall: Would you be prepared
to put on screen the number of calls that you receive, those that
get through and those that do not, and have you got any information
which you could give to the Committee now about the number of
calls that are received per show and the number that are actually
taken through to the presenter?
Mr Brook: Certainly and, in the
interests of greater transparency, we would happily provide that
information, an indication of the amount of calls that were coming
in at any one time, absolutely. It goes back to the fact that
one or two people have said that there is no skill involved in
this and have focused on the gambling and, in particular, the
representatives from Sky made that point. Just because these services
compete with Sky's £370 million[7]
worth of gambling revenue in the last six months does not make
them gambling and hearing Sky calling for regulation in this matter
is an interesting change in their position on most other matters
of media interest at the moment. The fact of the matter is that
most people make a clear choice, and neither is it an illegal
lottery. There is a free route of entry which we advertise very
clearly on screen and over 30% of our viewers use that free route
of entry. We have been operating over the last three years and
we have had 13 million calls and we are operating at a complaint
level of 0.00006 of 1%. Those complaints are generally relating
to relatively small sums of money in the context of the sums of
money that Sky were talking about just now.
Q63 Mr Hall: So of those 13 million calls,
how many actually got on to air?
Mr Brook: I have not got that
information, but I could very happily provide it.
Q64 Mr Hall: I bet that is about
0.00006 of 1%!
Mr Brook: Well, let us ask another
question. When contestants are recruited for Who Wants To Be
A Millionaire? and people are invited to send in a text or
to make a phone call to get a chance to appear on that programme,
do you think everyone gets the call? No. It applies to competitions
where a stamped, addressed envelope was usually required in the
old days and now of course there are phone calls to enter the
competition. Just because you have got the question right does
not mean that every single right answer gets a prize. These are
prize-based competitions in a long tradition of these dating back
to the circulation wars between The Mail and The Herald
in the 1930s.
Q65 Mr Hall: I think you have been
very candid with that.
Ms Maze: If I may say, we take
approximately a call a minute, which is generally what we work
to.
Q66 Mr Hall: How long are you on
air?
Ms Maze: It depends on the production,
which production. We specialise in producing formats for—
Q67 Mr Hall: A call a minute out
of 13 million calls a year? It is not very much, is it? The chances
of not getting through must be absolutely unbelievably high. Getting
through must be really difficult.
Mr Brook: The chances of getting
through depend on the different times of the day, the degree of
difficulty of the question and the number of people playing at
any particular time. I think viewers who enjoy these shows and
viewers who come back again and again, there may be a small number
of problem cases, but in an industry that has generated, in our
estimate, 100 million calls, 100 million in the last three years,
and that is the industry in the UK, I would suggest to the Committee
that there would be more evidence of addiction if that were a
serious problem. I think there would be more evidence and even
the first witnesses called today said there was no firm evidence.
As far as those problem callers are concerned, we have safeguards
to ensure that multiple callers are not encouraged. We do not
wish to encourage people making multiple calls. We would call
people back who make multiple calls and ask them if they knew
what they were doing.
Ms Maze: Again it goes back to
the point about building a sustainable business, and it is not
in our best interests to alienate the audience because they will
not come back and our business is dependent on having repeat viewers.
Q68 Paul Farrelly: In the evidence
we have received, I have not seen any complaints about Optimistic's
services, but there have been a number of complaints about Quiz
Call, so I just wondered whether I could ask you a few very straight
questions. Do you ever bar people who are reasonably successful
at winning money who come through the free-entry channel over
the internet? Have you ever barred anyone from participating because
they have won a substantial amount of money, for example, £22,000?
Mr Fleck: We never bar people
because of the number of wins they are having. We do occasionally
block people if they either make too high a volume of entries
and we do not believe that they are conscious about the decisions
they are making there or if we suspect misuse of either the web
entry or the telephone route. Indeed our web entry goes through
a computerised system, so there is no manual intervention if somebody
is selected to go through to the studio and he is a phone caller
or a web entry. Actually about 30% do use the web entry, so there
is a high usage of that and it is a popular service, and about
the same number of winnings we give out go to web entry because
the computerised system takes into account the volumes we receive
from phone calls and web entries.
Q69 Paul Farrelly: So if you have
ever barred anyone who has won a lot of money through web entry,
you would say that is because you suspect they are misusing the
web entry?
Mr Fleck: We have never barred
anybody because they have won or not won. We bar people if they
misuse either the phone route or the web entry.
Q70 Paul Farrelly: How do you define
"misuse"?
Mr Fleck: Basically if they use
multiple phone numbers, multiple IP addresses which means multiple
computers, so, let us say, they enter more times than a human
normally can. What we have designed both for the phone and the
web entry to be convenient and easy to use is the web entry is
as easy to use as the phone, it is just two clicks from the home
page. Actually we have been through the process even to time it,
so it takes you about 30 seconds to make a phone call if you dial
the number, listen to the announcement and then get through or
not and it is the same time it takes to fill out our internet
form and enter. Just to be fair, we want to exclude hackers who
use this—
Q71 Paul Farrelly: So you have never
barred anyone who has been successful who has used one particular
web entry point?
Mr Fleck: We have barred people
for misusing the web entry.
Q72 Paul Farrelly: Just one entry
point? You have never barred anyone who has just used one normal
computer or laptop?
Mr Howell-Cornes: We have barred
hackers. I do not know too much about the technology, but I think
that people can have up to 1,000 different phone lines on one
IP address which gives them 1,000 times the advantage over other
people.
Q73 Paul Farrelly: Can I ask you
whether at any point you have operated the practice that for some
amount of time you will not allow free web entry calls through
and then flick a switch and allow them through?
Mr Fleck: No, we have always had
the free web entry with the telephone system and there are no
switches. Even a computer making the decision, if it is a phone
entry or a web entry, it is based on a random process and the
volume coming in.
Q74 Paul Farrelly: So not only have
you not done it, it is technically not possible in your system
to do that?
Mr Fleck: Yes.
Q75 Paul Farrelly: Can I ask whether
you have ever adopted the practice of blocking calls for any particular
time at all?
Mr Fleck: We are not blocking
calls. As I said, we are banning certain callers who either misuse
the system or—
Q76 Paul Farrelly: No, I am talking
about putting a freeze when you are on air so that anyone ringing
in and paying actually cannot get through and cannot get through
to a presenter because you are actually putting in a big block
because the presenter is building the excitement over 15 minutes
or so. Has that practice ever been adopted?
Mr Fleck: As I said, we take,
on average, every 75 seconds a phone call through to the studio.
Q77 Paul Farrelly: So the answer
is no, that practice is never adopted?
Mr Fleck: Yes.
Q78 Paul Farrelly: People have, all
the time, an equal chance of getting through at any time?
Mr Fleck: The callers are taken
at regular intervals, on average, every 75 seconds, so we are
not blocking any callers.
Q79 Paul Farrelly: So everyone at
any particular time has an equal chance of getting through and
answering the question to win a prize?
Mr Fleck: Yes.
7 See supplementary Memorandum from BSkyB on p Ev 16. Back
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