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Mel Leech

Mel Leech

CEO of South Shore, TV production executive known for Cooking with the Stars and entertainment/factual programming

May 26, 2026

8:30
[laughs]
8:31
Um, so the show shoots, uh, it's a six-day studio shoot.
8:35
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.
8:46
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.
9:01
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.
9:14
There's gonna have to be a bit of reshooting, all of that.
9:16
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

18:16
What, what would be your sort of tips on how to achieve that?

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