Big Game TV

Last updated

Big Game TV
Ownership
OwnerBig Game TV Productions
History
Launched13 May 2005;19 years ago (2005-05-13)
Closed15 April 2007;17 years ago (2007-04-15)

Big Game TV (stylised as BIG Game TV!) was a live phone-in quiz channel that was broadcast via Sky Broadcasting in 2005. [1] It released a spin-off, The Hallmark Channel Quiz on 6 March 2006, which was shown on The Hallmark Channel. The show used only three of the presenters.

Contents

Big Game TV Productions added The Daily Quiz! on 13 March 2006. This show aired on ITV Play and on Men & Motors seven days a week and featured a selection of Big Game TV's presenters. ITV ended their involvement with Big Game TV due to fraud allegations in May 2006. [2]

Controversy

Big Game TV was the subject of a City of London Police investigation brought by the BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours in May 2006 over allegations that receptionists were told to ignore all incoming calls for long periods of time while 150-200 calls per minute were charged 75p each. [3] [4] The channel was later called before a parliamentary committee. [5]

NTL removed the channel from their channel line-up on 7 June. [6] The channel closed down entirely after leaving Sky in early 2007, after some bad press for the call-TV industry. [7]

Presenters

Voiceover

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV Digital</span> Former British subscription-based digital terrestrial TV service

ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the world's first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications plc and Granada plc, owners of multiple licences of the ITV network. Starting as ONdigital in 1998, the service was rebranded as ITV Digital in July 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NTL Incorporated</span> British cable and telecommunications company

NTL Incorporated, branded as ntl:, was a United States-listed British company founded in 1992, which provided cable television, cable internet and fixed-line cable telephone services. While NTL had its headquarters in New York City, the company's activities focused heavily on the United Kingdom, with operational headquarters in Hook, Hampshire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Davina McCall</span> British television presenter

Davina Lucy Pascale McCall is an English television presenter. She was the presenter of the reality show Big Brother during its run on Channel 4 between 2000 and 2010. She hosted Channel 4's Streetmate, The Million Pound Drop (2010–2015), Five Minutes to a Fortune (2013), and The Jump (2014–2017), as well as ITV's The Biggest Loser (2011–2012), Long Lost Family (2011–present), and This Time Next Year (2016–2019). McCall was a regular co-presenter of the Comic Relief annual telethons from 2005 to 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV News Channel</span> Former British television news channel (2000–2005)

The ITV News Channel was a 24-hour television news channel in the United Kingdom which broadcast from 1 August 2000 to 23 December 2005. It was available on Sky, NTL:Telewest, and analogue cable. It was also available during the morning on ITV Digital. The channel was carried by its replacement Freeview, although the launch of ITV4 saw its hours on that platform reduced to 6:00 am to 6:00 pm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ITV plc</span> British-based media company

ITV plc is a British media company that holds 13 of the 15 regional television licences that make up the ITV network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Living TV Group</span> British television broadcaster, 1990–2011

Living TV Group was a British television consortium originally called Flextech before becoming a subsidiary of British Sky Broadcasting, with Challenge still broadcasting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Good Food</span> Former British television channel

Good Food was a subscription cookery channel broadcasting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, latterly as part of the Discovery, Inc. network of channels. The channel originally launched on 5 November 2001 and relaunched in its final format on 22 June 2009. Good Food was available on satellite through Sky, on cable through Virgin Media, and through IPTV with TalkTalk TV, BT TV. From 2015 to 2018, Good Food was temporarily rebranded as Christmas Food.

U&Dave, formerly known as Dave, is a British free-to-air television channel owned by UKTV, a subsidiary of BBC Studios. It broadcasts mainly comedy, with some factual programming. The channel took the name Dave on 15 October 2007, but it had been on air under various identities and formats since October 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phillip Schofield</span> English former television personality (born 1962)

Phillip Bryan Schofield is an English former television presenter, known for presenting a wide range of high-profile programmes for the BBC and ITV from 1982 to 2023; presenting BBC programmes from 1985 to 1993 and 2001 to 2006 and ITV programmes from 1993 to 2023.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fern Britton</span> English television presenter

Fern Britton is an English television presenter and author. She co-presented Breakfast Time in the 1980s and hosted the cookery game show Ready Steady Cook between 1994 and 2000 on BBC Two.

Quiz Call was a TV quiz channel. It was broadcast in the United Kingdom and owned by Ostrich Media. It was also a late night / early morning phone-in quiz TV show, produced by Ostrich Media and broadcast on Five, Five US / Five USA, Five Life and Ftn.

ITV Play was a short-lived 24/7 participation television channel in the United Kingdom owned by ITV plc. The ITV Play name continued as a strand on the main ITV Network until December 2007.

A quiz channel is a television channel that focuses on phone-in quizzes. The quizzes usually focus on puzzles, such as filling in blanks, identifying subjects, or other forms of word puzzles. The channels make money by encouraging viewers to call a toll phone number for the chance to play.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virgin TV</span> Digital pay cable television service in the United Kingdom

Virgin TV is a digital pay cable television service in the United Kingdom, owned by Liberty Global (50%) and Telefónica (50%) after the merger its UK businesses to form Virgin Media O2. Its origins date from NTL and Telewest, formerly two of the UK's largest cable operators, which merged on 6 March 2006. All NTL:Telewest services were rebranded as Virgin Media in February 2007. Since the acquisition of Smallworld Cable in 2014, Virgin is the sole national cable TV provider in Great Britain. Currently about 51% of UK households have access to Virgin's network, which is independent from BT's Openreach network.

There are four major forms of digital television (DTV) broadcast in the United Kingdom: a direct-to-home satellite service from the Astra 28.2°E satellites provided by Sky UK, a cable television service provided by Virgin Media ; a free-to-air satellite service called Freesat; and a free-to-air digital terrestrial service called Freeview. In addition, an IPTV system known as BT TV is provided by BT. Individual access methods vary throughout the country. 77% of the United Kingdom has access to HDTV via terrestrial digital television. Satellite is the only source of HDTV broadcast available for the remaining 23%.

Freeview is the name for the collection of free-to-air services on the Digital Terrestrial Television platform in the United Kingdom. The service was launched at 5 am on 30 October 2002 and is jointly operated by its five equal shareholders – BBC, ITV, Channel 4, BSkyB and transmitter operator Arqiva. This article documents the history of the Freeview service, from its inception up to the present.

<i>Quizmania</i> Television series

Quizmania is a British interactive game show. The show was devised by Chuck Thomas, Debbie King, and Simone Thorogood and produced by FremantleMedia for Information TV and ITV. Similar to other premium-line call-in shows, viewers on the TV version of Quizmania were encouraged to phone a premium-rate number in order to provide an answer to a quiz question.

The Daily Quiz! was a live, phone-in quiz channel, previously a TV programme, which was showing on ITV Play and also on Men & Motors from 3pm-6pm seven days a week. Two presenters were in the studio simultaneously and took it in turns to answer calls, the second presenter waits by the jackpot board or front desk and is brought in every so often to chat. The Daily Quiz! had a newspaper/gossip theme running throughout the show and at regular intervals, the presenters sat at their desk, related celebrity news stories from the day's papers and discussed them in a light-hearted manner. Viewers could win up to £5000 in the jackpot game.

This is a timeline of cable television in the United Kingdom.

References

  1. "Big Game TV joins Sky lineup - Tech News". Digital Spy. 26 May 2005. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  2. BBC Report
  3. BIG Game TV - The Fraud Squad Raids by the BBC for the BBC Radio 4 programme You and Yours, broadcast 19 May 2006, retrieved 27 May 2006.
  4. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/sitesearch.do?querystring=%22big+game+tv%22&p=tto&pf=all&bl=on [ permanent dead link ]
  5. "MPs quiz broadcasters over gameshows - Media News". Digital Spy. 27 November 2006. Retrieved 22 May 2012.
  6. ntl remove Big Game TV from channel line up by Cable Forum, created 7 June 2006, retrieved 7 June 2006.
  7. "Big Game TV". UKGameshows. Retrieved 22 May 2012.