Complaints about C4 Ramadan broadcast tops complaints list

Categories: Latest News
Friday May 09 2014
There is some coverage in the papers today (Daily Mail and Guardian) about the Channel 4 report disclosing that its broadcast of the adhan during Ramadan last year received the most complaints in 2013.
The Ramadan season on the channel last year saw the call to prayer broadcast in the early morning throughout the month as well as other specially commissioned programmes on Islam and Muslims. Channel 4 in the report state that a total of 16.835 complaints were received last year with 2,011 of these complaining about the 4Ramadan Call to Prayer.
Channel 4’s Head of Factual Ralph Lee said of the volume of complaints and their nature: “The level of Islamophobia we encountered with the 4Ramadan season was unexpected, though much of it came from communities that were either very polarised or very un-diverse.
“It was balanced by an incredibly positive reaction from British Muslims, who were grateful for the acknowledgement of an important moment for them.”
Lee, in an article in the Radio Times last year, proclaiming the channel’s programming during Ramadan wrote that he hoped the broadcast would act as “a nationwide tannoy system, a deliberate ‘provocation’ to all our viewers in the very real sense of the word”.
In addition to the complaints figures cited in the report, Lee admitted to receiving complaints after his article appeared in the Radio Times.
The C4 report also notes that despite the high volume of complaints, the Ramadan season was watched by 5.3m people and received the biggest amount of praise, with 321 positive calls.