A look at TECC's findings about the most complained about telly.
In this article...
We recently published data revealing the most complained about British TV shows in the last 2 years, which can be seen featured in a Daily Mail Online article. Using information gathered from OFCOM, we compiled a list of the most disliked telly. “That’s got nothing to do with vaping” you might say, but our research actually stemmed from the ITV Tonight special ‘How Safe is your Vape’.
Where the Research Came From
In February 2022, an episode of Tonight aired on ITV titled ‘how safe is your vape?’. When we first heard about the show, we were hopeful to see a piece of mainstream media that would highlight the safety of vaping. Instead we saw an inaccurate and scathing summary of the vape industry, which was not received well by vapers. The Independent British Vape Trade Association (IBVTA) released an article the day after the show was aired stating that the show “presented the most unbalanced and misleading report on vaping seen to date on British television”.
The programme highlighted ‘vaping related illness’ that was popular in the media, known as EVALI. It has later been determined that the deaths occurring in the US was a result of vapers misusing e-cigarettes to vape THC oil, laced with vitamin E acetate. The show also featured an interview with Ewan Fisher, who was hospitalised after vaping. What it didn’t reveal was the fact that this was a severe allergic reaction, which is extremely rare.
In 2021 Yorkshire Cancer Research rectified this terrible media exposure with a documentary titled ‘Vaping Demystified’. This piece highlights the safety of e-cigarette use compared to cigarettes. It features interviews with experts including our technical director, Liam Humberstone.
But we wondered, if ‘How Safe is your Vape?’ was so poorly received and complained about by vapers, then what did others think of this example of media bias? That prompted us to do some research.
The Most Complained About British TV Shows
We found that 'Tonight: How Safe is your Vape?' was the 30th most complained about show between 2020 and 2022, with 381 complaints made. OFCOM complaints are made by submitting a form or calling in. The fact that 381 people were passionate enough to do so was impressive. Whilst we were researching this documentary, we got curious as to what else enraged the British public.
It was actually Good Morning Britain that received the most, totalling 75,623 across the two years. This was a staggering 36.63% of the total complaints received. Coming in second place was popular reality show Love Island with 42,944, claiming 20.80% of the total. When asked about the data, CEO of TECC Marcus Saxton said “We investigated the number of Ofcom complaints made against British TV programmes and found that Good Morning Britain was the most complained about show, with over 75,000 complaints made between 2020 and 2022. However, reality TV was the format which received the most complaints overall”.
Here’s a table featuring the top 10:
| Ranking | TV Show | No of Complaints | % of Total Complaints |
| 1 | Good Morning Britain | 75,623 | 36.63% |
| 2 | Love Island | 42,944 | 20.80% |
| 3 | Britain’s Got Talent | 29,561 | 14.32% |
| 4 | This Morning | 9811 | 4.75% |
| 5 | Celebrities: What’s happened to your face? | 7082 | 3.43% |
| 6 | Oprah with Harry and Meghan | 6499 | 3.12% |
| 7 | Lorraine | 4465 | 2.16% |
| 8 | I’m a Celebrity: Get Me Out of Here! | 4150 | 2.01% |
| 9 | Jeremy Vine | 2858 | 1.38% |
| 10 | Loose Women | 2017 | 0.98% |
In terms of program type the results were:
| Ranking | Type of Show | No of Complaints | % of Total Complaints |
| 1 | Reality TV | 79,925 | 38.71% |
| 2 | News | 78,791 | 38.16% |
| 3 | Entertainment | 39,068 | 18.92% |
| 4 | Soap | 2938 | 1.42% |
| 5 | Documentary | 2792 | 1.35% |
| 6 | Sport | 1991 | 0.96% |
| 7 | People | 700 | 0.34% |
| 8 | Other | 146 | 0.07% |
In Conclusion
And that concludes our findings for the most complained about British telly from 2020-2022! Who knew that Good Morning Britain would be so detested? I personally thought it would have been a reality show. Thanks for reading and I hope this article was a welcomed change from our usual broadcasting. Please don’t complain about me to OFCOM.
