The Mint

[Dizzieblonde]

Any ABers work for The Mint, Quizmania or similar shows? Just watching (yes, tragic, I know) and I'm starting to wonder if the callers are just researchers from the studio ringing up >:(

[n00dles]

They don't need to Dizzie, there's a hell of a lot of gullible, naive people out there ringing and ringing to try and win some money!

They are all a con (you will never "get" the correct answer), the premium rate call charge, is guzzling peoples dosh..

That is why there are so many of them now, it's quick and easy way to rake it in!!

[Mortartube]

A friend of mine works on the mint and he reckons they sometimes rake in unbelievable amounts every night (Just in phone calls alone), See how long the gaps are between recieving calls, people are phoning all the time between these recieved calls. The cash just mounts up.

[FoxLee]

In the early days of these new style quiz shows, my son became hooked on them but he always entered via the net so it ddn't cost him anything. He got through to the studio very often but of course, never stood a chance when it was an 'add all the numbers,,,' or 'count the numbers'. They have so many ways of approaching them that they are never straightforward. Then my son discovered the forum devoted to these quizzes and spent hours reading all the stuff on them and realized what a waste of time it was.

[Supernick]

Here's how it works.
The production company, or TV channel will contact a a firm like the one I used to work for. Basically they will build things on the end of phone lines, usually premium rate. So that includes ringtone services, competitions in your local paper, vote lines on BB, anything you can think of. These firms usually get their telephone numbers from a large supplier such as BT, Cable and Wireless etc. BT will give them a �1ppm number on a revenue share basis and probably take about 18p, leaving the company with about 82p per min from it. They will come to some sort of contract with the production company to offer them a revenue share scheme as well. The bigger the show, the more money they will probably hand over. I'd be willing to bet that The Mint probably take upwards of 75p per min, and the telephone company might make about 5p per min.
As the production company don't run the lines, they can't just stick their researchers in, not without a lot of hassle anyway. Far easier for them to say to the telephone company, 'send us a caller through in 10 minutes and turn down the rest that call'. So all callers will probably be real, but your chances of getting through are very slim. With repeat callers they might take 200,000 a night, so you can work out the odds for yourself.
Low production costs and 200,000 calls at �1ppm every night equals profit making TV.