New Channel 4 CEO Priya Dogra has apologized to the women who made “very troubling” rape allegations on Married at First Sight UK (MAFS), but has stressed the network “cannot investigate the specific allegations against the men.”
Dogra, who is just two months into the job, delivered her second statement to press this morning at the Channel 4 Annual Report briefing, where the focus was very much on MAFS and she faced numerous questions on the scandal.
Dogra declined to apologize yesterday after the airing of a BBC Panorama documentary and in-depth news article on the MAFS allegations, but today she said she was sorry. As she was speaking, MPs on the Culture, Media & Sport Committee contacted Channel 4 with numerous questions about the saga.
“I have heard the women’s accounts, which are very troubling,” said Dogra, who has commissioned an external review into Channel 4’s handling of MAFS allegations that will report later this summer. “Their distress is clear and for that I am of course deeply sorry.”
Dogra said the Panorama was “hard to watch” and it was “hard to hear the women talk about their experiences.” Yesterday, her predecessor Alex Mahon called the allegations “very serious and concerning,” and said they were “worth another look.”
The allegations include two of rape and one of a non-consensual sex act. The three men accused of wrongdoing deny the accusations, while Channel 4, which said it was made aware of the allegations several weeks before Monday night’s Panorama, and producer CPL Productions, say welfare protocols were followed. Nevertheless, Channel 4 has commissioned two external reviews, one from a law firm “examining the welfare protocols in place on this programme at the time claims were raised” and the other from former BBC One Controller Lorraine Heggessey, who is probing whether “any changes should be made to current protocols for MAFS UK.”
Dogra stressed today that Channel 4 “cannot investigate the specific allegations against the men, which they have denied.”
“We are a broadcaster, not an adjudicator, and allegations of this type are investigated by other bodies, including when complaints are raised, by the police,” said Dogra. “What I can do, and have done, is to commission an external review, which I did just days after being first contacted by the BBC back in April.” Her comments came a day after the Metropolitan Police urged victims on the show to come forward.
Dogra described reports that MAFS UK has been canceled as “wholly inaccurate” and said the network will make “no decision” over the sixth season until the review concludes. That season is “substantially filmed and currently in the edit,” according to chief content officer Ian Katz. “Obviously we will see what if any recommendations emerge from the review when we get it,” he added.
“Jigsaw identification”
Channel 4 took its entire MAFS UK back catalog down prior to the Panorama and Dogra said this was done in part through an “abundance of caution” to avoid “stoking speculation that might lead to the jigsaw identification of the women in the Panorama programme or indeed any other contributors.” “That is why the programme was taken down and I believe that it is the responsible thing to do in the circumstances,” she said.
Katz, who is shortly to step down after almost a decade as Channel 4’s longest-serving content chief, said he is “very confident that, based on the knowledge that we had at the time, we made the right decisions and ensured the women involved were kept safe when any issues were raised to us and were given the appropriate support.”
According to BBC News, one of the women who accused her on-screen husband of rape showed the MAFS welfare team her bruises and told them everything, aside from the alleged attack itself.
With examples like this in mind, Katz acknowledged there is a “gap” between Channel 4 feeling it has “made the right decisions” and “a situation where you have contributors who have been through a show and feel very let down.”
“I think if you talk to anyone who’s worked with me, you will know that I personally care deeply about the welfare of people who take part in our shows, and through all of my watch here, I’ve put contributor welfare at the absolute center of our commissioning approach,” he added. “So, when people participate in one of our shows and come out feeling that they haven’t been taken care of, I think that’s a failure.”
Three external welfare reviews have been commissioned during Katz’s tenure, one into MAFS, one into the suicide of true crime producer John Balson and one into the behavior of Escape to the Chateau hosts Dick and Angel Strawbridge.
Responding to a question from Deadline, Katz denied Channel 4 has a wider welfare problem and said the reviews are “evidence of how seriously we take those kind of issues and allegations, and how rigorously we looked at them.”
He noted that the Balson and Strawbridge reviews found “we had done the right things and taken the right actions at the right time.” The Balson review found that Channel 4 had acted “reasonably and appropriately” with its duty of care before the producer took his own life. Channel 4 cut ties with the Strawbridges after that review.
“Financial pressures” didn’t lead us to MAFS, Dogra says
Dogra and Katz were ostensibly speaking to press about today’s Channel 4 Annual Report.
Dogra refused to comment on whether axing MAFS will hit Channel 4’s bottom line and “challenged the notion” that financial pressures force the network into greenlighting popular reality shows like MAFS.
“We make over £1B ($1.34B) of revenue and invest £600M of that into our programming,” she added. “We have a diverse range of programming, and our job is to continue to invest in the UK creative sector and manage every other cost that we incur in the company. I don’t think that’s any different than any other business, particularly not any other media business.”
Channel 4’s revenue was broadly flat for full year 2025, while it continued to post a pre-tax deficit of around £10M and spent £640M on content.
The network today revealed it has renewed its revolving credit facility of £150M for the next five years on “competitive terms… to keep investing in content while we navigate the ongoing market challenge and continue to progress our transformation,” according to finance chief Lucy Thomas.
Channel 4 spotlighted highlights from 2025 including Virgin Island, Patience and Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping.
Unsurprisingly, the press release touting Channel 4’s successes didn’t mention MAFS. However, the Annual Report, which clearly went to press prior to the allegations being received, called the latest season of MAFS “Channel 4’s most-streamed show of the year – and most-streamed MAFS UK series ever (up 10% on 2024).”
