ITV2's Love Island cleared by watchdog Ofcom

Emma-Jane Woodham and Terry Walsh were voted out of the show before the final

ITV2 show Love Island has been cleared by media watchdog Ofcom after receiving complaints about sexual content.

Seven viewers complained about an episode broadcast on 30 June at 2100 BST in which two contestants, Emma-Jane Woodham and Terry Walsh, had sex.

But Ofcom felt that ITV2 had given viewers enough warning and that the footage was "relatively indistinct".

It also concluded that the young adult audience ITV2 is aimed at would have a greater expectation of such footage.

The watchdog also took into consideration the light-hearted tone of the sequence, which was edited to music from Bizet's Carmen "for comic effect", with the emphasis on other housemates' reaction to the event rather than the act of sex itself.

The incident took place in the dark in a communal bedroom and was recorded with night vision cameras.

Zara Holland was stripped of her Miss GB title after she had sex on the show

There was no full nudity in the scene and Ofcom noted the sex scene was extremely brief - approximately six seconds.

In the scene preceding the sexual footage, Woodham asked one of her fellow contestants: "If we have sex on top of the covers, they can't air that, can they?"

Ofcom also noted that the episode of Love Island in question was immediately preceded by a double-bill of the sitcom Two and a Half Men which typically included discussion of an adult and/or sexual nature, so "the transition to stronger material after the watershed was not unduly abrupt".

Love Island features contestants pairing up on a luxury island.

Audience up

One couple are voted the winners at the end of the series.

The Emma-Jane and Terry incident was not the only controversy of the series - former Miss Great Britain Zara Holland was stripped of her title after having sex with Alex Bowen on the show.

Love Island began in 2005 and ran for two series. It was revived last year and is now hosted by Caroline Flack and a third series has been commissioned.

The series is thought to have attracted double the number of viewers it had last year, with an average of 1.3 million people watching each episode.