I recently blogged about The Wright Stuff’s controversial phone-in debate centred on the Amanda Knox appeal case which led several viewers to complain to the media regulator Ofcom.
Since then, the show has faced yet more scrutiny as it has been announced as the most complained about TV show of 2011. The Channel 5 host Matthew Wright used a catchphrase from the TV detective series Taggart to describe the murder of a teenager in Scotland during an episode aired on December 6, 2011. The edition of the Wright Stuff, in which the presenter attempted a Scottish accent when saying ‘there’s been another murder’, caused 2,200 viewers to complain to Ofcom.
The second most complained about show this year was Dancing on Ice, in which outspoken judge Jason Gardiner told the shows head coach Karen Barber during an episode ’If your opinion mattered you’d still be on the panel,’ as she tried to defend a contestant. The episode prompted 784 viewers to complain to the media regulator.
The infamous appearance of Jeremy Clarkson on the One Show was Ofcom’s third most complained about TV show this year. Ofcom received 763 complaints about Clarkson’s appearance, in which he ranted that striking public sector workers should be ‘executed in front of their families’.
Clarkson made another appearance in the top 10 after 175 people complained about a Top Gear episode broadcast in January in which the presenters referred to Mexicans as ‘lazy, feckless [and] flatulent’.
The X-factor won the prize for the highest number of individual episodes complained about over the course of the year – mainly in relation to wannabe-rockstar Frankie Cocozza and
his infamous transgressions. Over 200 people complained about the singer’s behaviour, including swearing before the 9pm watershed and glamourising alcohol abuse in clips showing him partying, the Guardian has reported. However, it was the teenager’s drug boasts, which led him to be booted off the show in early November, which sparked the most anger among viewers.
In total, the 15 editions of the x-factor prompted 753 viewers to complain to the media regulator.