ITV Appoints Deloitte To Review Premium Rate Services

ITV has announced that it has appointed Deloitte as independent auditors to conduct a complete review of all premium rate interactive services in ITV programmes.
This will cover all premium rate landline, mobile (excluding pay downloads) and red button activity.
The review is in two parts: First, to ensure that all existing procedures are robust and second, a retrospective review of premium interactive services in all relevant ITV programmes of the last two years. ITV intends to make the findings of the review public.
All premium interactive services will be temporarily suspending across all ITV channels from Tuesday March 6. Interactive elements will return, programme by programme, as soon as they have passed the scrutiny of the independent audit. This will cover ITV productions, co-productions and independent productions.
ITV have said they will contact PACT and will be working closely with them and their members on this review.
John Cresswell, Chief Operating Officer of ITV plc, said: "This is a concern across the whole industry but ITV viewers can be confident that we will always act responsibly and take firm action to address issues that may arise.
"We believe that all programmes currently on air are compliant. However, in light of recent concern around this issue, something affecting every major broadcaster, we are conducting this independent review to ensure that ITV is meeting all relevant codes and regulations.
"We’ve asked the auditors to report back to us with some urgency. The interactive elements in each programme will be re-introduced as they are independently signed off. We expect the review of current programmes to be both swift and thorough. The retrospective review will take longer due to the greater number of programmes involved."
(DS/SP)