Eckoh, the UK’s largest provider of hosted speech recognition services, today announced two new contracts with Trinity Mirror (“TM”), the UK’s largest newspaper publisher, for the provision of interactive services.
Following the competitive tender process TM have appointed Eckoh as their exclusive network operator for all premium telephone and SMS services and as their service provider for a range of interactive services including votes, competitions, games and information lines to TM’s portfolio of national and regional newspapers including the Daily Mirror, Daily Record, Sunday Mirror and The People.

Both contracts run until the end of 2009 and are in line with Eckoh’s stated new strategy of operating these services on a sustainable margin and with very clear lines of responsibility, reflecting the more stringent demands now placed on telephone service providers.

Under the exclusive network operator agreement all services for TM, including those provided by third parties, will operate through Eckoh’s network. Eckoh will manage the provisioning and reporting of these services on an ongoing basis.

Nik Philpot, Eckoh’s Chief Executive Officer commented:  “We have spent much of last year restructuring and tailoring our proposition to media companies to become a best practice supplier and to reflect the new and challenging demands that the industry now requires. Strict compliance, process, and above all quality are now the critical components of what a network operator and service provider needs to supply. We are delighted that Trinity Mirror has concluded that Eckoh are still the best supplier in the market to provide them with such a service and we look forward to continuing what has been an excellent partnership over the last 3 years.”

- ENDS -