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During 2023, audience complaints about standards on TV continued to make the headlines with news coverage of the Israel Gaza conflict, the Coronation of King Charles and celebrity on-screen spats featuring in our top 10.

For Ofcom, complaints are a vital barometer for how audiences think and feel. Over the course of the last year, we received 69,236 complaints about 9,638 cases. That’s nearly twice as many complaints as we dealt with in 2022 – although the two most complained about programmes of the year make up nearly a quarter of the total complaints.

Importantly, this number doesn’t include complaints about programmes on the BBC. Under the BBC Charter, these must be handled by the BBC in the first instance.

Almost one in ten complaints to Ofcom this year were about coverage of the ongoing conflict in Israel and Gaza which began in October. We play a crucial role in preserving the integrity of broadcast news and current affairs programming, by upholding standards of due impartiality and due accuracy. And so, complaints about this content – on a range of channels – are being prioritised by our team.

Protecting audiences from harm

Every other Monday sees the publication of our Broadcast Bulletin – the go-to source for details of new investigations, our decisions and listings of complaints about programmes that don’t raise issues under our rules.

In 2023, we published 23 Broadcast and On Demand Bulletins which announced 57 new broadcast standards investigations, as well the outcome of 46 investigations. We found a total of 35 programmes in breach of our broadcasting rules and are working to conclude the others as quickly as possible. We also published 15 adjudications on complaints from individuals and organisations that complained to us that they had been treated unfairly and/or had their privacy unwarrantably infringed in TV and radio programmes.

We imposed sanctions on four broadcasters   for content breaches, including a £40,000 fine to the Islam channel and £10,000 to Ahlebait TV, both for broadcasting antisemitic content.

We also found GB News in breach of our rules on five occasions after our investigations found it broke our rules that protect audiences from harm twice and our due impartiality rules three times.

Shining a light on standards

Throughout the year, we have also published content to better explain more about our role and how our rules work – including around the rules relating to politicians presenting programmesand how people taking part in reality shows are protected.

We also clarified the importance of due impartiality in news and current affairs programming and explained how these rules are sometimes misunderstood. A common misconception is that due impartiality means “neutrality”. Or that it’s a mathematical construct whereby equal airtime must be given to all sides of a debate. Not so!

In February, our Director of Standards and Audience Protection Adam Baxter recorded a podcastwith journalist and broadcaster Pandora Sykes and TV critic and broadcaster Scott Bryan and Ofcom’s. The wide-ranging conversation covered reality TV, freedom of expression, full-frontal nudity and everything in-between!

Also this year, we published research to better understand what audiences expect from different content on TV, and on-demand, and explored audience attitudes towards sex and violence on television.

In 2024, we’ll publish the results of our research into what audiences think about programmes which feature politicians as presenters.

Whatever the issue, channel or programme, every complaint matters to us. Viewers and listeners will always remain at the heart of what we do, and we consider each and every complaint we receive carefully. All broadcasters are treated equally and fairly and held to the same high standards that UK viewers and listeners expect and deserve.

We’re looking forward to another year of protecting audiences from harm and upholding the right to freedom of expression on your screens and airwaves. And with a General Election looming, ensuring that due impartiality is preserved and news is reported with due accuracy will be high on our priority list.