A BBC Panorama investigation has revealed serious allegations of assault on Channel 4’s hit reality show, Married at First Sight. Three women who took part in the programme say they were raped or sexually assaulted by their on-screen “husbands” during filming.
They have alleged that both Channel 4 and the production company CPL failed in their duty of care obligations to protect them. According to the BBC, Channel 4 was aware of some of the allegations before broadcast.
The accounts are deeply troubling. They also prompt concerns about why the industry’s extensive welfare protocols may not have been enough to prevent these alleged incidents from happening.
As someone who has studied the experiences of participants in documentary television, I argue that not only are the duty of care procedures not adequate in protecting contributors, they might actually be helping to enable risky programme formats to continue.
In Married at First Sight, women meet their husbands for the first time in a mock wedding ceremony. They are then propelled into an intimate relationship on an accelerated timescale. The couples go on honeymoon, move into an apartment together and share a bed. An expectation of physical and emotional intimacy is built into the format itself, reinforced through the language of “wives”, “husbands”, “weddings” and “vows”.
Troublingly, this language was also echoed in the women’s accounts of their alleged abuse. One woman claimed that, before she was assaulted by her “husband”, he told her, “You can’t say no, you’re my wife.”
Production insiders have claimed that earlier seasons of the show were filmed more observationally, before changes were brought in to mirror the style of the original Australian version of the format. These changes are said to have created more confrontational moments, framed by group dinner parties and excursions which can descend into heated arguments.
This has helped to make the format popular, with audiences reaching up to three million viewers. But it has also intensified the experience for participants, creating a high-pressure environment structured around conflict and emotional volatility.
The industry’s gold standard
In the Panorama programme, CPL’s representatives describe their duty of care protocols as “gold standard and industry leading”. Changes to Ofcom’s broadcasting code in 2021 mean that producers are legally required to take “due care” of participants in their shows.
Like many production companies making reality television, CPL employs extensive duty of care, including psychological screening before contributors are cast, dedicated welfare teams and psychological aftercare. But the fact that such measures were in place during the filming of Married at First Sight only demonstrates how dramatically such procedures appear to be falling short of protecting participants.
In my recent research about the experiences of contributors in factual film and TV, I spoke to some of the first people who were given this extra level of support across the sector. These people did not include contributors from Married at First Sight, but represented a broad range of different factual productions made for a variety of UK broadcasters.
Interviewees told me the care they were given by production companies didn’t always feel very caring. One documentary contributor described her interactions with the programme’s psychologist as “box-ticking”. “I don’t think they were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts,” she told me. “They wanted to assess me mentally.”
In contrast, they described the relationships they built with some members of the production team – including producers, runners and researchers – as genuine and deeply valued. But duty of care was typically experienced as a bureaucratic process, designed to protect the interests of broadcasters more than the people involved.
Offering an intensive programme of duty of care creates an impression of safety and control. The measures may help to convince participants that they are in safe hands in circumstances where they would normally be cautious. Having these safeguards in place has arguably enabled the production of filming environments which are designed to generate conflict, and can also potentially cause harm to participants.
Rather than contributing to a shift in attitudes and working cultures throughout the industry, duty of care measures have arguably enabled broadcasters to justify their use of potentially harmful practices. This is despite years of being aware of the many risks.
Seven years after a series of suicides linked to the programme, Love Island is still in production and about to enter its 13th season. Despite having one of the strictest duty of care protocols in the industry, the show remains among the most-complained about on TV. The 2025 season attracted over 14,000 complaints from viewers concerned about bullying and abusive behaviour.
In the aftermath of the Panorama report, and the public reaction to the bravery of the women who spoke out, Channel 4 has announced an external review into welfare on Married at First Sight. Channel 4 CEO Priya Dogra has said she is “deeply sorry” about the allegations. The broadcaster has also pulled all previous seasons from its streaming platform, leaving the future of the format in doubt.
But the questions raised extend beyond any single production or broadcaster. Duty of care is now a key part of the reality television industry. But alongside its stated role in protecting participants, it has become part of an infrastructure that enables broadcasters to continue producing formats that could expose people to risk.
The industry’s reckoning, therefore, should not be about whether safeguarding procedures were correctly followed, but whether duty of care really offers protection – or just gives permission to keep producing content that causes harm.
