This year’s Married At First Sight, specifically Bryce Ruthven and Melissa Rawson’s relationship, sparked a load of official complaints to Channel Nine and the Australian Communications and Media Authority as it aired in March and April.
And after reviewing the feedback from viewers, the network sent a lengthy letter out to each of the complainants on Thursday morning.
In the two page response, Nine firstly apologied for any ‘concern or distress caused’, before then explaining it takes the participants’ well-being extremely serious throughout production.
It concluded by stating that Nine believe the scenes broadcast on the show, despite being controversial, complied with the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practise 2015.
If you haven’t got the energy to read the whole letter below, here’s the general gist of it:
- Channel Nine ‘takes seriously the concerns raised by viewers’
- Any views raised by participants ‘are their own and not the views of Nine’
- The participants’ statements and behaviour ‘are unscripted and captured by the program as part of the social experiment’
- Psychological support and assistance is available for the participants 24/7
- Just because a participant is not shown receiving psychological support and assistance, ‘does not indicate that they received no support’
- Nine ‘adheres strictly to the requirements of the Commercial Television Industry Code of Practise 2015’
- Nine ‘do not consider that the material broadcast is of such a level as to have breached the M (Mature) guidelines’
