At the launch of the fourth series of the 'X Factor', the makers of the show have admitted that some scenes have been staged.
ITV entertainment chief Paul Jackson said that some of the scenes in the first episode involving Simon Cowell wanting to bring back fellow judge Louis Walsh had been staged, but that they reflected what had actually happened.
Jackson said that if the makers of the show thought that the scenes could potentially mislead viewers, they would make clear that the sequence had been reshot when the first programme of the new series airs on Saturday.
He said: "In entertainment at ITV and all of us on the 'X Factor' take this issue of trust incredibly seriously. I don't believe that we've ever done anything on these shows to mislead the public or deceive the public."
He continued: "When our chairman (Michael Grade) says there will be zero tolerance of deception we all buy into that absolutely. We're entertainment programme-makers. We tell stories. We don't tell lies."
"How we tell the stories and the order in which we tell it, of course, we work as hard as we can with the tricks the profession provides for us to make the best story that we can for the public," said Jackson.
"Occasionally something will happen which the cameras weren't on, it's a lunch break, the camera wasn't quite wound up, running up to speed, it wasn't on the right place at the right time.
"Occasionally we go back and reshoot something that we believe is vital to the story and put it in the proper place in the story.
"Whenever we've done that we shoot what happens. We shoot it very close to the incident, and we do it to get the story right.
"We've always done that. Obviously we're in a slightly more sensitive climate at the moment.
"When we go back and pick up shots like that, if we ever put those together in a sequence which I think could in any way mislead the public we will make it clear to the viewers that we have done that," he said.
Cowell said of the first episode: "Most of it was real."
He added: "We're trying to show the mood up to that point. It's much more honest to show that stuff than say 'there's lots of interesting stuff but we're not going to show that."'
