Shilpa slur costs Big Brother bosses dear

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Bosses of reality TV show Big Brother will be have to air three apologies for breaching the broadcasting code of conduct by airing the bullying of Shilpa Shetty by Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O’Meara.

Ofcom ruled that Channel 4, which screened the show, was guilty of “serious editorial misjudgement”, and now had to make repairs by making a series of apologies both before and during the new series of Big Brother which starts next week, reports the Mirror.

While the channel avoided having to pay a fine, Ofcom singled out three occasions on which it had flaunted the broadcasting code.

These were: Jade Goody referring to Shetty as “Shilpa Poppadom”;

Lloyd saying that Shetty should “f*** off home”; and the argument over Shetty cooking a chicken, which ended with Lloyd and O’Meara making derogatory comments about Indian eating habits.

Ofcom also saw unaired footage of worse racist insults that were never broadcast - this included Goody, O’Meara, Lloyd and Goody’s boyfriend, Jack Tweedy, making a limerick about Shetty in which they joke about using a word which rhymed with “tacky”.

And while Big Brother producers told O’Meara and Tweedy that the limerick was clearly “a reference to the racial insult ‘Paki’,” they did nothing to stop the situation.

“Ofcom takes allegations of racist abuse and bullying on television extremely seriously,” a spokesperson said.

Labour MP Keith Vaz, who led protests in Parliament over the issue, has now called for Channel Four chief executive Andy Duncan to resign, as well as render an apology to the Bollywood star.

“Channel Four has behaved in an arrogant way which has shown contempt for the code of broadcasting. It is only right that they should be punished by having to broadcast, for the first time, an on-air apology,” he said.

“Andy Duncan should now apologise to Shilpa Shetty and realise that the contempt that was shown by them during this whole episode, in my view and that of many of the viewers who complained, now merits his resignation,” he added.

— ANI

Categories: Indian Television News and Gossips