Ofcom Announces Celebrity Big Brother Ruling

Ofcom has announced its ruling on the Celebrity Big Brother race row, saying that there was a serious failure within Channel 4’s compliance procedures for the series.

The regulator ruled that the broadcaster had contravened the broadcasting code and will have to show apologies at the beginning of the launch episode of the next series of Big Brother, which starts next Wednesday, the following day’s repeat and the first eviction show.

Ofcom picked out three events in the house that were in breach of the code: Remarks about cooking in India (transmitted 15 January 2007); “F*** off home” comment (transmitted 17 January 2007) and “Shilpa Poppadom” comment (transmitted 18 & 19 January 2007).

Ofcom said that Channel Four “failed adequately to apply generally accepted standards by justifying the inclusion of the offensive material by its context.

“Channel Four failed sufficiently to address the potential for offence or left this behaviour unchallenged. This resulted in offence being caused to a very large number of viewers.”

The investigation was launched after more than 46,000 complaints were made regarding the alleged racist comments made in the house (see Duncan Defends Big Brother).

The row began when contestants in the house were accused of making racist remarks towards Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty

Ofcom: 020 7981 3040 www.ofcom.org.uk