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London, United Kingdom (AHN) – A British TV spy show, “Spooks,” where many of its female intelligence operatives die violent deaths, is hampering the real MI5 in its recruitment drive for women to join the service.

When the highly rated British TV spy show, known abroad as “MI5″, airs every Monday night, there is a corresponding increase in online visits to the real MI5′s website from an average of 500 an hour to 1,500. But it has been putting off women from actually filling out the application because of the show’s portrayal of its female characters defusing bombs, chasing terrorists, getting injured in the line of duty or dying violently.

Despite an announcement of severe budget cuts, MI5 has begun an active recruitment drive for more female intelligence officers at starting salaries of just under £25,000 a year. On its website, the agency says it wants women to know that unlike the female characters in “Spooks,” they will be facing more cerebral challenges such as analyzing terrorist threats to the UK inside MI5′s Thames Intelligence headquarters.

A senior Whitehall source the Mail newspaper, “Spooks is a great TV show, but the violence can put women off applying for jobs at MI5. A career in the Service is about brain not brawn, carefully piecing together vital intelligence to protect the UK and its people.”

The Intelligence Service is made up of 41 percent women. Officials are looking for candidates with strong analytical and communication skills, patience, dedication, discretion, honesty and integrity, who work well in a team under pressure – not the ability to defuse nuclear devices or leap from exploding cars.

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