A heated exchange between Julia Hartley-Brewer and a Palestinian politician on her TalkTV show was the most complained about TV moment of the past year, the media regulator has revealed.
Ofcom said her interview with the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouti, had sparked 17,366 complaints.
This was almost double that of the most complained about programme of last year – Laurence Fox‘s ‘misogynistic comments’ about female journalist Ava Evans, which had got 8,867 complaints.
In the interview about the Hamas-Israel war, Ms Hartley-Brewer accused her guest of not letting her ‘finish a sentence’ and added: ‘Maybe you’re not used to women talking.’
Ofcom had previously told TalkTV to take extra care to ensure that highly offensive comments are ‘editorially justified’.
In second place was an episode of ITV‘s Good Morning Britain on August 5, which sparked 16,851 complaints.
Most of these were about an interview with Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana about the violent protests in parts of the UK – but about 1,000 complaints were also about presenter Ed Balls interviewing his wife, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
Another episode of the ITV breakfast show, on May 30, was in fourth place with 1,777 complaints, over a debate between broadcaster Mike Parry and dog trainer and XL Bully owner Kay Taiwo, about whether the dogs should be put down.
Ofcom said ulia Hartley-Brewer’s interview with the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghouti, had sparked 17,366 complaints
The heated exchange between the pair on her TalkTV show was the most complained about TV moment of the past year
An episode of Love Island was in third spot, with 1,832 complaints, mainly about the conduct of contestants Joey Essex and Sean Stone.
A storyline in ITV soap Emmerdale, which saw character Tom King use a syringe to poison a dog, was the fifth most complained about with 1,193 complaints.
Complaints about the BBC are not included in the figures, as they are handled by the corporation in the first instance.
Across the year there were 69,080 complaints to Ofcom, about 9,065 cases, a drop from 2023’s total of 69,236 complaints.
The watchdog also launched 43 broadcast standards investigations, finding in 40 of these cases that its rules had been broken