Business Weekly - Cambridge, UK

This second incident has caused the Hertfordshire firm further embarrassment and could lead to a complete breakdown in the relationship between Eckoh and the programme’s producer.

The trouble was caused when viewers were repeatedly invited to call BBC’s ‘live’ Saturday Kitchen programme to speak to celebrity chefs and to win a place on next week’s show. In actuality, ‘next week’s’ show was scheduled to be recorded just minutes later, making it practically impossible for anyone calling in to be ‘on-air,’ or on the next programme.

The show is created by Cactus Television, the makers of ‘The Richard and Judy Show,’ which attracted interest from the Premium phone line regulator Icstis last week, after viewers were asked to phone in for the programme’s ‘you say, we pay’ feature when they had no chance of winning the competition.

In reference to the state of the relationship between the two firms, Eckoh CEO, Nik Philpot said: “We are extremely concerned with the situation regarding these latest revelations and any potential breach of regulations and hence, have commenced a review of our ongoing relationship with Cactus.”

Eckoh were unavailable to reach for further comment, but an industry insider stated that the firm may have cause to “walk away” from the association with Cactus, adding that the deal may not “generate enough revenue for this kind of trouble.”

Eckoh denies responsibility in the matter and said that it only offers Cactus three phone lines and a web-based tool for selecting callers. It said that it didn’t offer Cactus a call handling service, and therefore couldn’t be held accountable for the mix-up.

The firm said that the telephone number provided for the phone-in service is “directly routed to a call centre provided by Cactus which is manned on Saturday mornings,” adding that Eckoh has “absolutely no relationship or role with this call centre and is not involved in any way with how these calls are used.”

In a statement issued to deny its culpability in the matter, the firm’s directors said:“We would like to emphasise that at no stage have Cactus or the BBC made Eckoh staff aware that the programme was not broadcast live and Eckoh have not been requested to make any changes to the way that the telephone numbers have been provided.”

For its part in the affair, the BBC has raised its hands, claiming that the whole affair was a simple mistake, adding that all of the profits from the 25p-a-time calls go to charity.

Last week, the Hemel Hempsted-based firm issued a statement that it would “cooperate fully” with an investigation to be conducted by the premium-rate watchdog, ICSTIS, after viewers of the ‘you say, we pay’ feature on Richard and Judy’s programme were invited to pay to enter a competition which had already ended.

Eckoh provides telephony services for a number of television programmes, including the ultra-successful ‘X-Factor,’ with whom the company says it has a good relationship