
Mel Leech
CEO of South Shore, TV production executive known for Cooking with the Stars and entertainment/factual programming
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May 26, 2026
Behind the Scenes - Cooking with the Stars - The Secret Diary of a Producer episode 6
8:35
8:46
9:01
9:16

Mel LeechGUEST
And, uh, so we were a couple of shows in, we'd done the first two, and it was going quite well, and then my phone went at 7:00 AM on the morning of the third record, and it was the exec to say there was a problem.

Mel LeechGUEST
And I thought, "Oh God, this sounds not very good if it's a 7:00 AM call." And it turned out that one of the contributors, there was a story that was gonna break about one of the contributors that would've been not good, uh, for anybody on the show, and for M&S, or ITV, or any of us.

Mel LeechGUEST
And so that was a bit of a heart-stopping moment when we thought, "Okay, how are we gonna deal with this?" Because, you know, we're midway through a studio, and at that point you've got to then go and persuade everybody that we're gonna have to extend the shoot.

Mel LeechGUEST
Which of course, you know, in normal circumstances, if you're three series, four series in and, and it's a just a channel-funded show, y- people expect it often, you know, things go wrong, don't they? But for, for the very first ever time that this was being done by ITV and by M&S, I remember thinking, "Gosh, this is a bit of a moment now," [laughs] 'cause-
9 MINS LATER