The women featured in Panorama said the show did not do enough to protect them.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for CPL, the independent production company that makes the UK version of the show, said its welfare system was “gold standard” and industry-leading, and that it acted appropriately in all these cases.<\/p>\n
Bryan said it was “a big deal” for Tui to pull out of the Australian edition – sometimes called MAFS Oz – as well as the UK one, because “it’s a hugely popular and lucrative show for Channel 4, especially with younger viewers”. <\/p>\n
Channel 4 was aware of some allegations before broadcast, and all the episodes featuring the women had been available on its streaming service.<\/p>\n
Speaking on Good Morning Britain on Thursday, Ofcom’s chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes said the media regulator will tighten its guidance around reality shows if necessary.<\/p>\n
“What we always try to avoid is being really specific about, ‘You can do this and you can’t do that’, because fundamentally the responsibility is with Channel 4 and its production company, or with ITV or BBC or whoever is producing these shows, to get this right,” she explained.<\/p>\n
“If they have not got right, this is going to be a serious issue.<\/p>\n
“It’s very live, but it does raise really serious concerns. If we need to tighten our guidance then we absolutely will.”<\/p>\n
She continued: “Sometimes we do have these wake-up calls where, as a country, we just go, ‘This has gone too far.'”<\/p>\n
On Monday afternoon, Channel 4 said it had removed all episodes from streaming and linear services, alongside MAFS UK social channels.<\/p>\n