Reports about Ofcom investigating new BBC drama London Spy about a number of complaints have been widely exaggerated, it has been revealed.
The Sun and the Daily Mail reported Ofcom, the UK’s communication regulator, had received 13 complaints in relation to a gay sex scene in the BBC drama’s first episode shown on Monday (9 November).
According to the newspapers, those complaints saw Ofcom launch an investigation into the show; the BBC’s guidelines state there should be ‘particular care’ over explicit scenes being shown shortly after the watershed.
In reality, the regulator received a single complaint about the scene, shown about 25 minutes after the 9pm watershed, a spokesperson told Gay Star News.
‘We’ve received one complaint about London Spy on BBC Two,’ said Elliott Ball, Ofcom’s communication manager, in a statement
.
‘We are not investigating this program at this stage, but are assessing the complaint.’
On Tuesday, the Daily Mail had already sparked outrage amongst its readers who accused the paper of homophobia after it published Christopher Stevens’ one star review of the drama.
In the review, Stevens claimed London Spy ‘wasn’t merely gay: it was as exclusively all-male as an old-fashioned gentlemen’s club’ before describing the explicit scene as the lead characters getting ‘down to being gay’.
‘You might think that it’s become impossible to switch the telly on without seeing two men locked in a naked clinch, or in drag, or snogging,’ Stephens wrote.
‘But apparently not. According to Auntie, viewers are starved of shows with homosexual lead characters.’
Tom Rob Smith, the creator of London Spy, voiced his opinion on the matter in a tweet calculating the percentage of offended viewers.
Roughly calculated the percentage of viewers who complained to ofcom about #LondonSpy pic.twitter.com/rcBLaWXOjb
— Tom Rob Smith (@tomrobsmith) November 11, 2015
UPDATE: Ofcom have released a statement saying there will be not investigation against the BBC.
‘In our view, the scene was appropriately scheduled after the watershed. We therefore won’t be investigating the programme,’ it reads.
‘Our broadcasting rules do not discriminate between scenes involving opposite sex and same sex couples.’
Watch the trailer for London Spy below: