The Channel 4 property show fronted by Sarah Beeny is being examined by broadcasting watchdogs after a complaint that it promoted her own estate agency.
Beeny - owner of online agency Tepilo - extensively promotes online agencies in her Monday evening programme How To Sell Your Home although in the first two episodes (the third is transmitted this evening) she has not named her own agency.
Ofcom has confirmed that it has received a complaint, although it has not said where from nor the exact nature of the concern. Its broadcasting code has rules to maintain neutral editorial content.
A statement from Channel 4 to the Sunday Times says: "Sarah was chosen for her expertise on this type of house selling. We were aware that she had her own company and the contributors were told not to use Tepilo."
Comments
Perhaps I was missing something but my overriding impression of the 2 episodes, before this evenings, is that the parties they chose to follow aren't very good advocates for DIY online marketing, let alone selling.
In the main the parties refused to accept the agents advice particularly in relation to pricing and refused to detach themselves from their pride and joy home being up for sale. One couple last week were crowing about saving the agents fee of 1,500 or so when they sold their house for 83,500 instead of the 90,000 that the agent had suggested. Fair enough the conventional agent didn't guarantee that he could achieve 90k but if he was any good he would have a fair chance of making more than 85k which would have covered his fee and left them in no worse position.
I think the programme makers were misleading when quoting fees for conventional agents as including vat but then omitting vat when they calculated the online agents price and thus the amount saved.
But overall I was surprised how little beaney was pushing her own portal. It was mentioned but I wouldn't say that this programme is an advert for it
The backlash begins...to be fair, Beeny's programme doesn't even strive for balance, it's as pro-online agency as Agents' Mutual is anti anything online.