A television quiz show aired by TV3 has been branded "unfair", "incoherent" and "likely to mislead" by the broadcasting regulator.

Two complaints by the same viewer have been upheld by the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) who dismissed nearly all arguments made by TV3 and found against them on four separate grounds.

Play TV has been the subject of a series of complaints from the public since the Sunday Tribune first revealed it was under investigation by the regulator last June.

This is the first definitive finding against the show and TV3 will now be obliged to make chang­es to the way it operates or jettison the programme altogether.

In the first complaint, a letter from Anne O'Brien, the chairperson of the BCC said: "The format of presentation and the techniques used in the course of the broadcast amounted to the quiz being conducted unfairly. There is a lack of transparency about the chances of being connected to the studio and also the purpose and format of countdown techniques used are incoherent and ad hoc and are likely to mislead.

"Also, some of the visuals used and claims made by the presenter were likely to mislead the viewers. Further, the presenter changed the game significantly at a point [on a specific night] which was unfair... The commission found that the broadcast was in breach of the general advertising code."

The Play TV programme offers cash prizes, sometimes of several thousand euros, to viewers who successfully answer a question on air. The difficulty often does not lie in answering the question but rather in getting through to the studio in the first place.

Each call to Play TV costs €1.50 and some viewers say they spent up to €370 without once being allowed to answer a question live on air.

The first complaint centred around a programme where nobody managed to get through to the studio for close to two-and-a-half hours. It reads: "The broadcast was misleading and misrepresented facts throughout. It is clear... there was never an open line from 00.30am to 2.58am. There was no chance of a caller being connected until the end."

A second complaint said on one night, three hours had been devoted to the question: "What is white?" Dozens of callers were put through but had no chance because the clues were "so vague". At 2.57am, three minutes before the show was due to end, one viewer got through and won a cash prize after answer­ing soymilk. They were two "correct" answers, the second one being "white alligator".

The BCC echoed their previous judgement against the TV3 programme. They said the answer of "white alligator" was "not reasonable".

They rejected an argument by TV3 that the programme was similar to quizzes run by The Late Late Show. "A fundamental difference... is that with PlayTV, the random selection determines whether a viewer succeeds in participating, while with the other [Late Late] format, random selection determines the winner."