Colin and Barry were two of the most controversial characters of their time — mainly because gay-orientated content was still relatively rare on prime time television during the mid-1980s. Gay characters that existed were usually farcical camp parodies, created purely for comic relief, such as Mr. Humphries in the situation comedy, "Are You Being Served?". Although "EastEnders" was not the first UK, televised soap to include a gay character — Channel 4's "Brookside" had that distinction — the portrayal of an openly gay male — let alone a homosexual relationship — on a prime time, pre-watershed BBC programme was unheard of before Colin and Barry's introduction. The licence-funded BBC held a far greater audience share than the commercially-funded Channel 4, thus public reaction to "EastEnders"' gay characters was much stronger and more widely documented in the British press.