BrainTeaser

BrainTeaser is a British game show based on the original Dutch format of Puzzeltijd (English: Puzzle Time).

Actions included publishing fictional names and presenting a member of the production team as a 'winner'.

At the end of 2005, Gould left the show and was not replaced, leaving Lovell the sole presenter apart from occasional breaks (which were usually covered by former regular host Craig Stevens).

The lowest-scoring contestant is eliminated after each of the third, sixth and eighth rounds, so that only one is left standing for the Pyramid.

If a contestant buzzes in but fails to give the correct answer, the clues continue to be revealed.

For the first few days under this format, the scores from the previous rounds were retained at this stage, and reset to zero only after Word Wheel.

Letters drop one at a time into the line below in the correct place, until one contestant buzzes in with the right answer.

Should all players be frozen out before the end of the round (this happened only once), a new word would be given and all contestants would be back in play.

Wordplay had two differences from the round in the more recent format: Throughout the show, phone-in viewer puzzles are announced.

Viewers enter by calling a premium-rate telephone number, and one caller is randomly selected to solve the puzzle.

For example, on one occasion when the word was 'sister', the presenter said 'This type of nurse might look after you on a ward', and later, 'Michael Jackson has one called Janet'.

In light of the ICSTIS investigation of the use of premium-rate telephone numbers in various interactive British television programmes as part of a phone-in scandal, Cheetah Productions (a division of Endemol), who created the BrainTeaser format, admitted that some of the show's contestants were fake.

On 8 March 2007, Channel 5 resultantly suspended all shows involving premium rate services, claiming they knew nothing about the scam.

However, a simple procedure checking daily winners would have easily identified the fraudulent activity instantly.

During this time, Avon and Somerset Constabulary reviewed the reports from Channel 5 and the ICSTIS to see if there were any allegations or evidence of criminal wrongdoing contrary to the Fraud Act 2006.

Once the ICSTIS investigation was completed on 26 June 2007, Ofcom handed out a record-breaking fine of £300,000 to Channel 5 for the phone-in scandal.

[3][4] The Ofcom report found the use of fake winners had begun as an expedient to help the continuity of the live format; as such, fakery was not used frequently until 2007 when with the introduction of the Quickfire format to the viewers' quiz led to time constraints on sourcing contestants becoming more pressing.

Endemol claimed their original intention when using 'green calls' was to select a genuine winner after the show; however, this only happened once.