TV channels say they’ve come clean on phone-in shows

BY A CORRESPONDENT
March 8, 2007

In the light of the recent controversy over alleged scam in premium-rate television phone-in shows, major broadcasters in the United Kingdom have said they have carried out checks on all their participation TV shows.

ITV said it would suspend all its premium phone and interactive services while an independent audit was being carried out. However, no other broadcaster has so far said it would follow this lead.

Officials of ITV believe that other broadcasters are not doing enough in trying to bring back public confidence in premium phone-lines by not conducting their own independent reviews.

Said a source in ITV: “ITV is going through a thorough independent review. It will report on the findings and will make any necessary changes once this is done. It seems it will be the only broadcaster with an independently verified clean bill of health. Unless other broadcasters can say something similar, public confidence is unlikely to come back.”

BBC and Channel Five have said they have carried out their own checks on shows and found them to be all right.

Channel 4 said it was continuing to check around half a dozen shows with an independent third-party lawyer as part of its investigation into the original Richard and Judy claims, but said it had found no further problems.

All four broadcasters are attending the meeting of the phone-in watchdog Icstis on Thursday to discuss ways of regaining the public’s confidence following controversies surrounding several premium-rate phone and interactive services.

The alleged problems with Channel 4’s Richard and Judy, BBC1’s Saturday Kitchen and ITV’s The X Factor and Ant and Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway will also be discussed.

A senior BBC source said all its TV and radio shows had been checked and were cleared.

A BBC insider said the corporation did not use phone lines to generate revenue in the way commercial broadcasters did, but agreed that maintaining public confidence in participation TV services was important for the whole industry.

BBC relies on the public phoning in for telethons such as Comic Relief, but the source said the corporation did not expect the volume of calls to be down following the current controversy.

A spokesman for Channel Five said its shows, which include phone-ins on live daytime programme The Wright Stuff and some Quiz Call elements late at night, had all been given a clean bill of health.

Icstis has said it wants to get an agreement, as soon as possible, on action the TV industry can take to restore public confidence.

However, broadcasting insiders say a quick decision is unlikely as any new proposals would have to be examined by lawyers and signed off by senior executives across the industry.