It has probably been a decade when I last heard the term Home Partner in a TV game show. Do we still remember how it worked? Basically, home viewers got the chance to participate in game shows and partake of game prizes without being a TV contestant but by being a home partner of the studio winner. Being home partner meant winning exactly or a determined percentage of what the studio winner earned. Aspiring home partners join by sending in their contact details (names, addresses, telephone number), proof of purchase of a featured product (bottle caps, empty sachets or foil wrappers, boxes, etc.) sometimes with the name of one's "suking tindahan". Entries were sent via regular mail or dropped in boxes at designated stores and were drawn from a raffle "tambiolo" in the presence of a DTI representative.
These days I see that game shows have employed the use of mobile phone text messaging and somehow modified the mechanics of the Home Partner segment of the show. Home viewers text in their contact details to a Message Center and winners get drawn electronically. In some shows, it has become an independent segment all its own; its winners picked and prizes given independently of the main game segment. There could be a word to be solved or a trivia question to be answered. Whatever this new version entailed, the line,"The more entries you send, the more chances of winning!" still applied. The difference, however is that when before the cost to a contestant could be the actual cost of envelope, writing materials, and mailing cost in some instances, none of which benefits the prize giver in some direct way, this time the cost to the participants is the cost of a text message from which TV shows derive a sizeable amount of share from the text messaging company. From the point of view of Caltex vs Palomar, this practice can be considered as a form of lottery which fuels the gambling spirit among the audience. With the unbelievable ease of solving the word puzzle or trivia, the elements of chance, prize, and consideration should be deemed all present. In fact, there is reason to suspect game shows make money in this scheme by giving a prize taken from a mere portion of the cut they get from the text message entries. I even notice some shows announce increases in the "pot" prize during the show. This obviously means they could monitor in real time the amount of entries coming in which translate to a bigger income hence an increased "generosity" on the part of the show.
If the game shows are doing some form of lottery on TV, shouldn't they be monitored even more closely than online lottery given the wider and easier accessibility of these games to the public?
- Marichelle B. Recio
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