“Choose who you want to eliminate from the Big Brother house”, but know that your phone call could be useless. The most famous and talked about reality show on television is being targeted by the Antitrust, which, following a report from Codaconds and the National Union of Consumers, has thoroughly investigated the mechanisms of televoting. And he found that something was not right. For this reason, the Authority has sent a fine of 60 thousand euros to Rti (Reti Televisive Italiane), the company responsible for broadcasting Canale 5.
In detail, the case concerns the writings that appeared superimposed when the presenter of the program announced the opening of the televoting. It seems that Rti has "omitted relevant information", as stated in the Authority's latest weekly bulletin. In fact, the company has not set up any control system on the origin of the phone calls. This means that, if they wished, the people materially interested in the progress of the program could have hired call centers to flood the editorial board with votes and thus decisively influence the progress of the reality show.
All without encountering any opposition from Rti. On the other hand, we have to understand them: every single phone call was worth one euro. A rather high figure for a few seconds of call. Too bad viewers didn't know anything about it. They were induced to spend money on televoting "on the basis of the erroneous belief that each user had the same possibility of influencing the selection of the winner", says the Antitrust.
