As the year comes to a close, it’s time to take a look back at some of the most complained about moments on the small screen in 2024.
Leading the way was Julia Hartley-Brewer’s heated exchange with a Palestinian politician on her TalkTV show, according to media watchdog Ofcom. The broadcaster’s remarks during an interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, on January 3 received 17,366 complaints.
She had been talking about the Hamas-Israel war with Dr Barghouti after a senior official in the militant group Hamas, Saleh Arouri, was killed. The interview clip shown on TalkTV saw Hartley-Brewer becoming agitated with her guest before accusing him of not letting her “finish a sentence”.
TalkTV’s Julia Hartley-Brewer’s chat was the most complained TV moment of the year ( Image: TalkTV/Youtube)
After assessing the complaints, Ofcom revealed it told TalkTV to “take extra care to ensure that potentially highly offensive comments are editorially justified”. The number of complaints received for Hartley-Brewer’s interview was almost double those to the most complained about programme of last year, which was Laurence Fox ’s “misogynistic comments” about female journalist Ava Evans. His actions received 8,867 complaints.
The top spot was then followed this year by an episode of ITV ’s Good Morning Britain on August 5, in which 16,851 complaints were made. Mos of the complaints were focused on an argumentative interview with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana about the violent protests in some parts of the UK in the wake of the killing of three young girls in Southport. There were also approximately 1,000 complaints directed towards Ed Balls as he interviewed his wife, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, about the protests.
According to Ofcom, its assessment found Sultana was “given ample opportunity to express her views and respond to the questions put to her”. The regulators reminded ITV of the need to make relationships, such as the fact Balls and Cooper are married, clear to viewers and their responsibility to due impartiality.
Ed Balls and Zarah Sultana MP’s discussion received complaints ( Image: ITV)
Meanwhile, in third place was an episode of dating show Love Island which received 1,832 complaints, mostly about the behaviour of contestants Joey Essex and Sean Stone. Next up came another GMB moment from May 30. This time, 1,777 complaints were made a debate between guests, broadcaster Mike Parry and dog trainer and XL Bully owner Kay Taiwo, about whether the dogs should be put down.
Fifth spot was awarded to episodes of Emmerdale on May 27 and 28. The scenes sparked 1,193 complaints as vet Tom King, the abusive husband of Belle King, used a syringe to poison her dog Piper as part of an ongoing coercive control storyline.
The figures on the list don’t include complaints about the BBC, which are handled by the corporation in the first instance. Over the year, Ofcom received 69,080 complaints about 9,065 cases, a drop from 2023’s total of 69,236 complaints.
Emmerdale fans complained in May ( Image: ITV)
