There's a myth that's been perpetrated by TV and production companies. The myth is that the public has control over what happens in so called "reality" programmes. So far it's worked quite well. Every week, vast hordes of viewers wait avidly for phone numbers to flash up at the end of these shows so they can vote for the least/most hated person, knowing that like the baying crowds of old at public hangings they can tune it to watch the fate of the latest unfortunate (or some may say deserving) victim errr I mean contestant.
Most callers are fully aware that the cost of these calls is way above ordinary call charges but who cares? The rush from being able to vent your spleen, control someone else's life, by dialing a succession of numbers is well worth it.
Of course people failed to notice the creeping way in which this kind of profit making made it's way onto our screens and into our homes.
From music channels who encouraged you to phone your request in for your favourite video to quiz shows with a viewers question, just to help you feel like you were really involved and not just sitting in your armchair shouting at the tv. Of course we have the various "reality" programmes and now we have whole channels dedicated to one long phone in multiple answer quiz programme where you're charged whether or not you get through, just dial the number!
How long does it take people to figure out that questions like
"The rain in Spain falls mainly in the
A) dog
B) the back seat of the car
C) plain"
are designed not to find a winner but to get as many people phoning in as possible thus ramping up the profits? It seems it's taken a very long time.
Finally, however, the penny seems to have dropped (pun intended) with the latest BB7 twist. There's has been all sorts of "furore" going on over the fairness or otherwise of former housemates going back into the house and having a chance to win.
People are up in arms (ok, some people) because they have spent "good" money ensuring those housemates were hanged errrr sorry I mean evicted. Now, a few weeks down the line BB has turned tables not just on the housemates but also on the public.
BB is asking viewers not only to phone to vote evictees back into the house next door but then to possibly phone once again to evict one of the former housemates on the final week. (The current housemates are to decide who comes back into the main house). Okay so all the money for the return to the house next door is going to charity but talk about trying to sweeten the pill!! How cynical and manipulative can you get?
However, the fact remains that the people already spoke with regard to certain contestants and now they're being asked to speak again - AT YET MORE COST!
The public have spent the last 7 years laughing at the housemates and the way in which they have been controlled and manipulated by a faceless BB entity but BB7 has finally tipped his hand and we now know, with very little doubt, who is in control of the whole thing and who has really been manipulated all this time. The housemates have had it easy with all expenses paid, fed and watered, fees, celebrity status and possibly career opportunities not normally afforded ordinary people. Maybe they have been the ones laughing at the public all along.
So much for "Who goes??? You decide!!"
:)x
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