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ITV’s Love Island has proved a hit for the broadcaster, but the reality dating show has also dominated a more unwelcome chart – comprehensively winning the title of this year’s most complained about programme.
The treatment of Shakira Khan, a contestant many viewers believed had faced bullying, was the main issue ensuring the show took all three top spots in a list of TV output provoking the most protests to Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator.
Episodes across three consecutive days in July led Ofcom’s complaints list. It culminated in 3,547 complaints being submitted about the 24 July edition of the show. More than 2,000 complaints were received on each of the two previous days.
The vast majority of complaints were made in relation to claims of alleged bullying against Khan, who broke down in tears on several occasions. It came after the emergence of apparent cliques in the Love Island villa.
Some viewers believed Khan was being subjected to negativity from the other women in the show, as she was often shown alone and subjected to jibes and eye rolls. Tensions reached a peak when she ended a relationship with one islander, Conor, to pursue another, Harry.
Producers also raised the tension by showing Khan and another contestant criticising two other women. Concerns for her mental health were also raised as she was repeatedly shown crying.
Despite the thousands of complaints, Ofcom ultimately decided not to investigate the show. It said the negativity towards Khan was not celebrated and that viewers of the show – and reality shows generally – had come to expect the kinds of scenes that were the subject of complaints.
Other protests were from viewers complaining that one contestant who had left the villa was later allowed back in. However, ITV makes clear that producers can “reintroduce an islander seen in earlier stages of the competition who was previously evicted”.
The broadcaster has also said participants are given training in advance of arriving in the villa, which involves the need to avoid “behaviour patterns associated with controlling and coercive behaviour”.
In fourth place in the complaints charts was an episode of Vanessa Feltz’s Channel 5 show, in which the fashion designer Karen Millen described mothers who breastfed their children beyond six months as “selfish”.
Viewers complained the item was misleading. Ofcom concluded the comments “did not raise issues under our rules” and medical guidance had been provided to viewers at the start of the section.
Rounding up the top five was a GB News item from January, in which the presenter Josh Howie made a comment linking the LGBTQ+ community to paedophiles. He later said his was a comedy show and his comment was intended as a “joke about paedophilia in the church”.
Ofcom’s subsequent investigation found the programme had broken broadcasting rules by including a “highly offensive remark which was not justified by the context, falling short of generally accepted standards”.
GB News also apologised this week after a guest wrongly stated that the Duchess of Sussex’s mother, Doria Ragland, had spent time in prison.
