The Mint

Anyone watched it? You know the start when no ones phoning in and there stretched for something to say and just talking gibberish waiting for someone to phone and there not bothering?

Well new the answer to a few the other night work them out thought yes £50
so i phoned. what do you think happend. A voice said lets see if your a lucky caller funny noise went and the voice said no. Please phone again.

Was wondering.. am i correct in thinking ok... there not giving anything away for a 60p phone call they maybe collect your number on a caller display after you made two pound fifty worth of calls they let you have a go. What do you think so far? Or do you think i was just Not lucky i got a we feeling luck has little to do with it.

Has anyone else tried and found the same?

[damage]

i wouldnt have thought that would be the case, that they wait for people who have called a few times - that imo would not be allowed.

whereas assigning you a number at random btw one and n when you phone
and if you say get 7, you get through - but increasing n (so decreasing your chance) early on, and reducing n, (so givign you more chance) later on, i think that would be allowed (as it maintains equal chance and independent of how many times you have phoned previously)

i prefer mint to quizmania for late night drab

on quizmania, their tactic was to make the top prize answers (and in fact most of them) ridiculously hard. This proba bly allowed them to let more callers on air, but they could control when the money went because people on average would be able to figure out a winning answer

then when they decided time to reveal the next valued answer, they would give away very obvious clues, - eg "actor who starred in x and y"

the most silly one i saw was "first names beginning with b"

the early ones were particularly tricky, burt was the easiest one,
the last two were stupidly impossible

the top prize when they decided to let someone win, they wrote BO*Z on the screen with the clue rhymes with NOAZ

at least on the mint the answers are doable - though i imagne they weight the prizes and callers through accordingly, so the expense on each show is the same.


the ch 5 version of great british quiz is one of ths stupid ones, with unworkable questions, eg count the numbesr

twenty - five times 2
ten times five
four - two

or something like that, where there is always a trick which they aren't required to reveal

infact this one, the time ran out, so never foudn the answer...

[pmccreight]

First up remember that the Mint was created to make up the short fall in ITVs advertising revenue and it main aim is to make a profit.

Leaving profit aside and working on what the various presenters have told us in recent days, ‘We have given away 2 Million Pounds since we started’, just do the math and figure out how many calls to the Mint are needed to generate 2 million pounds.

Not claiming these figures to be exact figures but you will get the idea:

‘2 Million Pounds since we started’ stated about 8 weeks into show creation.
Let’s say 56 days/shows. Divide that into 2 million and you see that The Mint gives away on average £35000 per show.
To generate £35000 requires that 60p number to be called about 58000 times.

Yes……that’s an average 58000 calls per show needed to generate the prize money alone.

Another point to remember is that a portion of the 60p call goes to BT. So its more than lightly the average number of calls needed is higher than 58000 to generate the prize money.

And remember the first point……The Mint was created to make a profit so it boggles the mind trying to figure out how many poor sods it takes paying 60p a go to generate prize money, pay other costs and return a profit to ITV.

[lostinspace]

Did I read somewhere that even if you don't get through you are charged for the call? If so why would anyone other than a complete muppet even try?

[Nick_UK]

Originally Posted by lostinspace

Did I read somewhere that even if you don't get through you are charged for the call? If so why would anyone other than a complete muppet even try?

Well done - you've just worked out why it can take up to four hours for someone to win these games. Not until they have made 300% profit do they allow a correct caller through, and all calls are charged. Easy money.

[krish]

Originally Posted by lostinspace

If so why would anyone other than a complete muppet even try?

exactly.... its the graveyard shift on I(Chav)TV
- TV for the thinking Chav's Chav

[RMCF]

These shows are just the equivalent of poker machines and the like in pubs.

They are 100% guaranteed to make a profit.

Without slagging anybody off I think only an idiot would phone in to them. They make some of the answers so easy at the end that loads phone thinking they are going to lift £5000 or so.

Plus the time they're on at must tempt the people just coming in from a night on the lash and who aren't thinking straight.

[damage]

didnt realise the itv shows were designed to make money

(seemed likely to be the case for the dedicated cable quiz channels, where this is their only source of income)

i always imagined itv put on these shows as cheap entertainment
and are happy to lose moderate amounts of money because it would still be cheaper than commisioning sketch shows, or paying for 80's films, or however they previously used to fill the 12 to 4am slot

so i thougth the income from phone calls would have roughly matched the outgoings on prizes - however, previous posters comments, made me google:

http://www.tvforum.co.uk/forum/viewt...r=asc&start=36

google brought up this forum, i think the secodn poster is quite likely the greg form quizmania. for a second i thought not, as his "revelation" hardly promotes the show, but if not him, must be someone pretending to be him...

i wonder what ball park figures they make - if they give out 30k in three hours, get 50p per phone call, would imagine they need about 100,000 phone calls to make anything sizable

true, the keen fans, prob phone in maybe 5 times each, but 20,000 participants

ive never once been tempted to call in, im sure cos it was drummed into me at an early age that all these things are a scam

saying that - i have started doing those "prize draw wallets" - the ones where you ahve to phone a premium £1.50 line for 6 minutes...
hwoever you can also apply by post, so for two first class stamps, seems worth while

the first one i did, i got a weeks holiday full board in tunisia
the catch - trip for one person, and they were only required to give you 4 days notice (after they picked the date best for them)

but beign single and very flexible, ive no problme with those those two conditions

[LFC_SL]

So the like's of X Factor, and even the phone-in competitions on that Soccer Aid for Unicef have the same aims? I read in the paper 15p from every 50p goes to charity. Simon Cowell is l-o-a-d-e-d

[kevandalice]

so what about the 'free web entry' then?

[pmccreight]

From the Mint TOC......

Entries submitted via the internet are entered into the same random selection process as the telephone entry route using the same odds.

If an entrant is selected as a potential on air participant he or she will be notified on the webpage after completing the web entry form and provided with a 0800 free phone number and a unique 4 digit PIN code. The entrant is required to call the free phone number from the landline number they supplied in their web entry form. The 4 digit PIN code may be used once to enter the competition. Each 4 digit PIN code must be used once before attempting to enter the competition with any subsequently issued 4 digit PIN code. When the entrant calls in on the free phone number he or she will be placed on hold joining a pool of other potential on air participants. If selected to go live on air the entrant will be transferred to the presenter of the Programme and asked to give their answer to the Quiz.

Yes….web entry is free….but you must remember that The Mint was created to make ITV a profit and free web entry does not make them any money so they still need the thousands of telephone callers per night to rake the cash in.

e.g. if out of 100,000 per callers per night to the Mint provides the prize money, pays costs and returns a profit.
Lets say 50,000 of those callers the next night enter via free web entry the Mint still needs a further 50,000 telephone callers to acquire prize money, pays costs and return a profit. That’s a total of 150,000 entrants per night reducing everyone’s slim chance even more.


It is of no surprise that HM Treasury is in the process of an investigation into programs like the Mint and Quizmania. The TV ppl claim the quiz questions are games of ‘skill’. HM Treasury claims they are games of 'chance' judging by some of the obscure answers. Perhaps a further investigation should be carried out to prove it’s a game of 'chance' even getting to answer the quiz question.

[damage]

http://www.icstis.org.uk/pdfs_consul...mantlMedia.pdf

interested by the idea of proposal of telling people each time they have spent £20 phoning in

crickey, this suggests quite a few people do spend significantly more than £20 in a night

500 calls in total a minute - the mind boggles

i guess with viewing figures of maybe 50 - 100, ooo
that will only mean 20% phoning in perhaps 5 times a show

[Nick_UK]

I suppose it's no more stupid than buying a lottery ticket and telling all your friends what you're going to do when you win the top prize.

[pmccreight]

The National Lottery is sold and promoted as a game of chance and most importantly licensed. The licence granted by the British Government, is only given once the operator agrees to the mind boggling numbers of rules and regulations that have been created. Everything from draw times to the size and type of the balls used.

The Mint is claiming to be a game of skill when it is not. The HM Treasury will hopefully find this in it forth coming report and the Mint will therefore be classed as a game of chance and fill therefore fall under UK gambling law.