Benefits Street

Benefits Street is a documentary series on the British television channel Channel 4. It started on 6 January 2014. Five episodes will be shown.[1] It is about some of the people who live on James Turner Street in Birmingham. 90% of the people on the street claim benefits. 4.3 million people watched the first episode. It was Channel 4's most-watched shown in more than a year.[2] It shows some people who claim benefits (claimants) doing crimes.

Criticism

Almost 300 complaints were made to Ofcom after the first episode was shown.[3] Dee Roberts complained that she had been tricked into being on the programme. She said that the people on the programme thought the show was about a working class community, but that instead they had been portrayed as "complete scum".[4] Almost 10,000 people signed a petition asking Channel 4 to show no more episodes of the show.[5] Steve Haywood, a friend of an alcoholic in the programme known as Fungi, said that Channel 4 gave Fungi beer so that he would be on the show.[6]

References

Other websites