ITV has suspended all premium rate interactive services, including text voting, and pulled its ITV Play quiz channel, pending an independent review. The highest-profile casualty of the move is ITVs hit Saturday evening show Dancing on Ice, which has been pulled until it has passed the independent audit. ITV hopes, however, that the show will be given a clean bill of health in time to go out as usual at the weekend.
ITV has come in for a great deal of criticism over its premium rate interactive services recently. ITV Play was heavily criticised for a phone-in question about the items that might be found in a womans handbag. The correct answers included rawlplugs and a balaclava. Depends what sort of woman you are, we suppose.
The daytime magazine show This Morning is also under investigation for allegations that viewers were encouraged to phone-in to a premium-rate number to enter a competition, after the winners had been chosen. And only yesterday, premium-rate phone line regulator Icstis said it planned to investigate the Grab the Ads segment of ITVs Saturday Night Takeaway show.
The independent review, to be conducted by Deloitte, will look at each show in turn, and will include other programmes broadcast by ITV over the past two years, including X Factor and Im a Celebrity. The results will be made public.