ITV's Michael Grade 'surprised' at 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' claims

ITV's Michael Grade 'surprised' at 'I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here' claims

	Published : Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:43 By : Agencies Print this Story

LONDON (AFX) - ITV PLC executive chairman Michael Grade said he was 'surprised' by the Sun's decision to publish a story claiming 30,000 votes had been lost on ITV1's programme 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!'

The tabloid this morning alleged the texts were mistakenly excluded in a crucial audience poll, resulting in David Gest being thrown off the hit reality show instead of Myleene Klass.

ITV issued a 'categorical' denial of the story, as did the telecoms company at the heart of the controversy, Eckoh PLC.

'It's a very serious allegation,' Grade told the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee this morning.

The ex-BBC chairman told the MPs that ITV had given the Sun 'good information' that the allegations were false, and that he was 'surprised' to see the story on its front page this morning.

Eckoh, which handled the phone in for the show, said emails given to the Sun by a 'source' had been 'maliciously fabricated... to cause maximum impact and damage'.

'We are taking legal advice against those supplying false information and we will today be reporting the matter to the police,' the company said in a statement.

It is believed that the source for the Sun's story is an ex-employee of Eckoh.

Grade was not the only leading TV executive called on to defend the industry's increasingly tarnished record on premium rate phone-ins this morning.

Channel 4 boss Andy Duncan told the committee of MPs that the station had suspended all of its phone-in competitions during its coverage of the Cheltenham horse racing festival, which began today.

An investigation into its Saturday morning racing show, The Morning Line, found that some 100 callers who dialled in after the cut-off point for a competition were wrongly charged.

A computer fault at Eckoh, which runs many Channel 4 phone-ins, was the reason for the error, Duncan said.

Eckoh also supplies telecoms services to the 'Richard and Judy' show, which was the first programme to admit to problems with its premium rate phone lines.

Duncan said 'only time will tell' whether the controversy had eroded viewers' trust in participation programmes. Channel 4 earns some 8-9 mln stg a year from premium-rate calls, but Duncan said he expected that to decline 'modestly' over time.

Grade, meanwhile, said he did not believe the public's confidence in the industry had been 'too badly shaken' as a result of the scandal.

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee is looking into the future of public-service television when the terrestrial signal is finally switched off in 2012.

simon.duke@thomson.com

sd/am

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