Channel 4 Ends Married at First Sight UK After Two Reviews

Channel 4 has cancelled Married at First Sight UK, one of its biggest hits, after two reviews that followed allegations from female participants. Two women said they were raped during filming, and a third said she faced a nonconsensual sex act.

How the allegations led to the decision

The claims were aired in an edition of the BBC's Panorama in May. After that, Channel 4 pulled every episode from its streaming and linear channels, took down the show's social accounts and ordered two reviews.

The format pairs single people with strangers they meet for the first time on their wedding day. The marriages are not legally binding.

Channel 4 chief executive Priya Dogra said the reviews were not asked to look into the Panorama allegations themselves. She said she was very sorry for the distress the women had clearly felt.

What the two reviews found

The first review looked at current safeguards. It was overseen by Lorraine Heggessey, a former BBC One controller. She found that continuing the show would be reasonable, with enhancements to the contributor welfare framework and changes to the format. Channel 4 says she described the safeguards as extensive, thorough and of a high standard.

The second review, led by the law firm Clyde & Co, examined the welfare protocols in place when the allegations arose. It found "isolated incidents where the welfare framework was not fully implemented". It also found that Channel 4 and the producer CPL could have run a more structured review over several series. Channel 4 says the review concluded the protocols complied with Ofcom's code and that no breach was found.

Dogra said the recommendations were sensible and feasible. Applying all of them, she said, would require so much intervention, monitoring and supervision that the show itself would be transformed.

Series six and the spin-off

Series six was in production when the review was commissioned. It will not be broadcast, because it was not made under the strengthened protocols the review recommended.

A spin-off, Second Married at First Sight, was in pre-production with CPL and had been paused. It will not resume.

Dogra framed the end as a question of timing. The show, she said, has "run its course" over ten years.

Criticism from a contributor's lawyer

Lia Perin, who represents one of the contributors whose allegation featured on Panorama, said the findings "raise more questions than they answer". She pointed to the acknowledgement that parts of the show heightened conflict and pressured contestants to be intimate. She also noted that the review recommended wider consent training.

Perin said the format was designed to produce drama, so the risks came with it and could have been tackled long before serious allegations emerged.

Source: The Guardian