The Most Complained About Shows In British TV History

This expose of dog fighting broadcast on Channel 4 in 2014 featured footage of a real dog fight between two pit bull terriers. 1,800 people complained about show, with Ofcom launching an investigation into the show.

A sturdy 2,161 people complained about Sky News in 2010, following Adam Boulton and Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell’s on-screen row in the wake of the general election. Between 2003 and 2015, the news channel has received over 6000 complaints to Ofcom in all.

Stuffing his foot into his mouth, Channel 5’s Matthew Wright received more than 2,200 complaints and was forced to apologise after adopting a Scottish accent and using Taggart’s catchphrase ‘there’s been a murder’ and then laughing loudly when discussing the death of 16-year-old Liam Aitchison in the Hebrides during a newspaper review.

At the time of its broadcast in 2001, Chris Morris’s 'Brass Eye’ special, 'Paedogeddon!’, was the most-complained about single programme in history, with 3000 people haranguing Channel 4 over its content, which found a host of celebrities from Gary Linekar to Doctor Fox making fools of themselves in front of a national audience, as Morris mocked media hysteria over paedophilia.

Perhaps its primetime slot puts it in the firing line more than other shows, but 'Britain’s Got Talent’ viewers appear to have had plenty to complain about over the years, Ofcom logging 3,747 complaints since the show began. Causing the most ire was when it was revealed Jules O'Dwyer had used a stand-in dog for her performance in last year’s final, and not Matisse. 1,043 people kicked off about that.

It was meant as a satirical, mockumentary-style look at what might happen if Nigel Farage’s UK Independence Party somehow managed to seize power. Some didn’t see the funny side, with 6,187 people complaining to Ofcom and Channel 4. The Guardian later discovered a 'significant’ number of complaints had been lodged in an orchestrated campaign by far-right group Britain First.

EastEnders is top of the complaints charts when it comes to the world of soaps. A staggering 8,400 viewers contacted the BBC over Ronnie Branning’s controversial 'baby swap’ plot in 2011, in which she swapped her dead son with Kat Moon’s newborn. Prior to that, its record was 7000, when a huge number of viewers complained to the Beeb following the death of Ronnie’s daughter Danielle in 2009.

Stewart Lee’s 'Jerry Springer: The Opera’ caused all manner of controversy when it was presented at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. Unsurprisingly, when BBC2 screened it in 2005, 8,860 people complained to Ofcom, over its blasphemy, profanity and tap-dancing Ku Klux Klan members. Hundreds also gathered to protest outside BBC buildings.

The bizarrely ill-conceived BBC horror spoof 'Ghostwatch’ from 1992, in which Sarah Greene, Mike Smith and Michael Parkinson hosted a 'live’ ghost hunt at a house in north west London, appalled the nation, its documentary style leading many to believe it was real. A reported 30,000 people contacted the BBC following its broadcast. It was banned from broadcast for a decade.

Standing head and shoulders above the rest is Big Brother, which between 2003 and 2015 has received 73,788 complaints to Ofcom. Making up more than 45,000 of these was the lamentable argument between Shilpa Shetty, Jade Goody and Danielle Lloyd, in which Goody and Lloyd levelled racist remarks at the actress during Celebrity Big Brother in 2007. Nearly 4000 also complained over the behaviour of former escort Helen Wood in the 2014 series too.