\u201cdeeply sorry\u201d for the distress of the participants<\/a> who made the allegations, though the channel\u2019s executives have also said they are confident its welfare protocols are robust and were followed. \u201cI do believe that our handling of concerns at the time was appropriate but as I only took this role up recently, I wanted this looked at again,\u201d Dogra said.<\/p>\nPriya Dogra, Channel 4 chief executive. Photograph: Royal Television Society\/YouTube<\/p>\n
There are plenty of contestants from Married at First Sight UK, widely known as MAFS, that report having a positive experience on the show. Many TV insiders believe its welfare protocols are among the most rigorous in the business.<\/p>\n
However, a debate is now raging within the industry about whether it is possible to make MAFS and similar reality formats completely safe. Sanderson is not alone in his view that it is not. Others who have worked on the show believe that, at least in its current form, the show puts safety at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe these shows could be produced in a safe way if you replace welfare with genuine mental health experts, psychologists, people that have the background to deal with these complex issues,\u201d says Emma Pringle, a producer who worked on MAFS and other reality dating shows. \u201cHowever, that would really affect the content \u2026 We\u2019re not going to see the same type of shows.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you want the current content, then no, I don\u2019t think they can be made safely in a way that protects everybody involved.\u201d<\/p>\n
double quotation markIt\u2019s not as simple as updating protocols. They have done that to death \u2026 We need legislationEmma Pringle, TV producer<\/p>\n
Pringle says she believes legislation is needed to regulate such shows, given welfare protocols are already in place. \u201cIt\u2019s not as simple as updating protocols,\u201d she says. \u201cThey have done that to death. I have witnessed some real, positive changes happen across the industry. We need legislation. We need the government to regulate this industry more. It\u2019s not working.\u201d<\/p>\n
Megan Wolfe, who appeared on the 2021 series, says she believes the format could survive in an adapted form, with the expectations of intimacy lowered.<\/p>\n
\u201cMarried at First Sight, in particular, would need some adaptations to make it safe,\u201d she says. \u201cRather than intimacy being considered a given, it should be more of an option. The fact that everything is backwards \u2013 you start with a marriage \u2013 makes intimacy more of a pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says separate bedrooms and bathrooms is an obvious step. \u201cYou should opt into intimacy, rather than intimacy being seen as a given and you have to actively opt out,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople would be much more empowered to outline their boundaries from the outset.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mark Stephens, a media lawyer, says the experiment of reality TV has gone too far. \u201cYou are removed from normal support networks, you\u2019re placed under constant observation, you\u2019re subject to engineered conflict and encouraged to form intense emotional and physical bonds rapidly and not in a normal way,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese shows are not failing despite the pressure, they succeed because of it. Their psychologists are operating within a flawed framework. They\u2019re not designing the format. They are asked to manage harm.\u201d<\/p>\n
There is a wider concern, too, that having undergone contraction and crises in recent years<\/a>, the British television industry has become too reliant on challenging reality TV formats.<\/p>\n\u201cReality television asks ordinary people to make a bargain: give us your relationships, your vulnerability, your ambition, your body, your private life, and we may give you attention, opportunity and escape,\u201d says Fatima Salaria, an experienced executive producer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe question now is whether that bargain is still sustainable. If audiences, regulators or contributors decide it is not, the consequences will not stop with MAFS. They will go to the economics of British television itself.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wolfe says she fears shows are constantly pushing the boundaries. \u201cWith each new show that pops up, it feels like a competition to be more extreme, to show the most intimate versions of people,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you can\u2019t mitigate risk and you aren\u2019t 100% sure you are mitigating as much risk as you can, you shouldn\u2019t be making the shows.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was about 1am. After a day of relentless filming in which he had met and \u201cmarried\u201d a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-456240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456240","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=456240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}