{"id":451271,"date":"2026-05-20T14:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/451271\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T14:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T14:17:12","slug":"channel-4s-new-ceo-issues-apology-to-the-mafs-uk-women-at-centre-of-very-troubling-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/451271\/","title":{"rendered":"Channel 4’s new CEO issues apology to the MAFS UK women at centre of “very troubling” allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Channel 4<\/a>‘s new CEO has publicly apologised to the women at the centre of Married at First Sight’s “very troubling” allegations following Panorama’s documentary<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Priya Dogra, who joined the broadcaster two months ago, said she was “deeply sorry” and revealed she’s issued a raft of changes as part of a review to “strengthen the welfare and duty of care protocols”.<\/p>\n

She added: “I have watched the programme and heard the women’s accounts which are very troubling. The distress is clear and for that I am deeply sorry.<\/p>\n

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“Welfare across all our programmes is hugely important to us and is our primary concern. However, I am sure you will appreciate that Channel 4 cannot investigate the specific allegations against the men, which they have denied. Nor can I comment on them in any way.<\/p>\n

“We are a broadcaster and not an adjudicator, and allegations of this type are investigated by other bodies including when complaints are raised by the police.”<\/p>\n

Explaining Channel 4’s response to the allegations as a result of Monday night’s Panorama programme on BBC One, which included removing the MAFS series from their streaming service<\/a>, Dogra said: “What I can do and have done is to commission an external review, which I did just days after being first contacted by the BBC back in April. I do believe that our handling of concerns at the time was appropriate. But as I only took up this role recently, I wanted it looked at again.<\/p>\n

“I should add that I also took the decision to remove MAFS UK from our platforms prior to the Panorama broadcast as an abundance of caution. I did not want to run the risk of stoking speculation that might lead to the jigsaw identification of the women in the Panorama programme or any other contributors.<\/p>\n

“That is why the programme has been taken down. I believe that is the responsible thing to do.”<\/p>\n

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Dogra also denied some reports that the show has been cancelled.<\/p>\n

“These are wholly inaccurate,” she claimed, adding: “No decision has been made about the broadcast of MAFS series six, and any decision we do take will only be taken after the review is concluded.”<\/p>\n

The Panorama documentary included allegations by two women who took part in Married at First Sight UK, claiming they were raped by their on-screen husbands during filming, while a third woman alleged a non-consensual sexual encounter by her match. The three men have denied the claims.<\/p>\n

Dogra was further asked on how she felt as a woman watching Panorama, the CEO saying it was “hard to watch”. “It was hard to watch the women talk about their experiences. And what I did in response to that, but well ahead of that, was to look into our handling of it,” she said.<\/p>\n

“We do believe we took the right decisions at the time, but I want a second look at it. That was my reaction to it. It was very hard to watch and I have said sorry for the distress of the women. What I can do about it is what I have done. The review is going to look into the handling of it at the time. The review is intended to have a rigorous look at all aspects.”<\/p>\n

Channel 4’s chief content officer Ian Katz said the broadcaster was “not in a position to adjudicate” on the allegations from the women, and that they “have to look at what we can look at and assess whether we got right and look at lessons for the future and that is what we are doing”.<\/p>\n

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Channel 4 previously confirmed that they were made aware of the allegations in April, and Dogra has addressed whether they should have made it public when they first arose.<\/p>\n

“I commissioned a review on hearing about the Panorama allegations,” she responded. “We would always publish the outcome of the review. I don’t think we needed to say anything about it in advance. We were not waiting for Panorama. <\/p>\n

“The work is under way. Our job is to look at our actions and protocols and when we apply them appropriately. It is for other people to look into allegations that the women have made. It is our duty to look into duty of care failure.”<\/p>\n

Katz said he was “very confident” that “based on the knowledge that we had at the time that we made the right decisions”, explaining: “That we ensured that the women involved were kept safe when any issues were raised to us and that we gave them the appropriate support and that we took the right decisions through the production process and beyond that.”<\/p>\n

He added that it is “clearly right to take a second look” at the allegations and “make sure we got it right at the time”, saying: “More importantly to look at anything that we need to learn about how to make the show in the future and if there is anything we need to do to improve welfare. That is something we have done consistently through the life of that show.” <\/p>\n

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Sam is a freelance reporter and sub-editor who has a particular interest in movies<\/a>, TV<\/a> and music. After completing a journalism Masters at City University, London, Sam joined Digital Spy as a reporter, and has also freelanced for publications such as NME<\/a> and Screen International<\/a>. \u00a0Sam, who also has a degree in Film, can wax lyrical about everything from Lord of the Rings<\/a> to Love Is Blind<\/a>, and is equally in his element crossing every ‘t’ and dotting every ‘i’ as a sub-editor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Channel 4‘s new CEO has publicly apologised to the women at the centre of Married at First Sight’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[137241,163007,635,210945,637,146,85,46,195853,636,210944,138784,411],"class_list":["post-451271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-collection-latest-news","tag-collection-married-at-first-sight","tag-content-type-news","tag-contentid-879b4de3-a97a-448e-bb12-b28421fe94c9","tag-displaytype-standard-article","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-issyndicated-false","tag-locale-gb","tag-shorttitle-channel-4s-new-ceo-issues-apology-to-the-mafs-uk-women","tag-subsection-reality-tv","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}