British Broadcaster ITV to start late night gaming

The UKs commercial Television station ITV has a new Chief Executive in the form of Adam Crozier (you may recognize the name from the English Football Association) and he is keen to increase revenues but putting a gambling show on ITV 1 after midnight. The partner in the exercise which will run for an initial 6 months is NetPlayTV which has deals already with STV and Virgin and will offer numbers games like Keno and Bingo as well as Roulette. William van Rest, ITV controller of TV shopping and gaming, said: “We are keen to trial a range of opportunities to develop a potentially valuable new revenue stream.”

This is not the first effort from ITV to make money from this sort of show; people with longer memories will remember Quizmania and The Mint that were dropped from the schedule in 2007 after the company had to pay fines for irregularities in the premium rate phone in shows and of course it was also involved in the broader scandal over rigged phone in competitions. UK regulations governing media operations changed in October 2009 and now allows this type of gameshow to be broadcast on terrestrial TV as it is called teleshopping. The show is scheduled to start next month and to be broadcast 6 nights a week shortly after midnight. Personally we shall be sticking with online casinos who have more to offer and can be trusted.