Murdoch: Sky avoided "grubby" phone-ins

Sky chief executive James Murdoch has said that the broadcaster avoided running premium-rate quiz programmes because they "felt grubby."

"We took the view that [premium rate quizzes] were taking advantage of people and that our customers deserved better than that," he told the Royal Television Society's magazine, Television. "We have a betting business and a lot of work goes into informing people about how those services work and putting the appropriate protections in place. But to us premium-rate quiz stuff always felt grubby, trying to get an extra nickel out of everyone. We didn't feel comfortable in it."

Murdoch added that Sky's "discomfort has been borne out" and claimed that premium rate quizzes "undermine" the relationship between a business and its customers "because basically it is just taking advantage, and it's pretty sleazy."