Big Brother Controversy Could Force C4 To Rethink Remit
The Channel 4 board of executives will meet today to discuss the Celebrity Big Brother furore and the broadcaster’s handling of the controversial events in the house.
As the escalating race row between reality TV figure Jade Goody and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty pushed this series’ viewing figures up – peaking at around 8.2 million adults as Goody was booted out to silence on Friday (see Audience Banned From Big Brother Eviction) – C4 bigwigs will today be forced to explain their handling of the incident.
Andy Duncan, the broadcaster’s chief executive, has faced mounting criticism over his response to the confrontation after he failed to intervene or admit racism was involved in the bullying of Shetty by Goody and other housemates (see Duncan Defends Big Brother). There is also talk that producers may axe the show after this series comes to an end in a week.
However, the mounting tension gave the series its highest viewing figures so far for the third eviction night, with Channel 4 taking a 37.3% audience share for the second instalment of the programme. The first edition of the show gained an average adult audience of 6.5 million (27%), whilst viewing dipped again on the weekend, with Saturday’s show taking an average adult audience of 2.8 million (12.6%) and Sunday’s gaining around three million (12.3%).
The issues have led to calls for the broadcaster’s entire remit to be examined and the future of its public subsidy called into question. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, yesterday entered into the debate, saying that the broadcaster should admit it had handled things badly.
Alan Johnson, the education secretary, said teenagers should be taught “British values” to combat racist and ignorant attitudes. Phillips called on the channel to censure Luke Johnson, its chairman, and said that Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, ought to intervene if it failed to take appropriate action.
He told BBC One’s Sunday AM: “There is no question that if the Channel 4 board does not say that Johnson was wrong not to talk about it last week, that his executives were wrong to say that there was no racism involved… if the board does not take that stand then I think Tessa Jowell has to step in and ask if this is a board that is capable of holding a public asset in trust for us. I think it is that serious.”
Liz Forgan, former director of programmes at C4 and now chairman of the Guardian’s Scott trust, told the BBC: “Channel 4 has got big problems. It was awful to hear the chairman of the channel in the middle of a big crisis say ‘I’ve got nothing to say, read my press release’.”
Ofcom has said it will write to the channel following 40,000 complaints about the alleged bullying, and police are also looking into claims of racial abuse (see Big Brother Racism Complaints Reach An Estimated 20,000).
The programme’s sponsor, the Carphone Warehouse, pulled out of its sponsorship of the latest series of CBB, saying it was unhappy with the furore surrounding alleged racism and bullying (see Carphone Warehouse Suspends Celeb Big Bro Sponsorship).
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