Channel 4 board debates Big Brother

12 April 2012

The Channel 4 board is set to meet to discuss the future of Celebrity Big Brother.

Senior managers will brief the board's eight non-executive members on the network's handling of the damaging row about alleged racist bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.

The Channel 4 board is said to be reluctant to make a "knee-jerk" reaction and is not expected to make a decision on whether to axe the show at this time.

Pressure on Channel 4 is continuing to mount as more politicians add their voices to criticism of the reality TV show.

Education Secretary Alan Johnson has argued that "British values" need to be taught in schools to combat the "ignorance and bigotry" seen on the show.

Trevor Phillips, chair of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, called on Channel 4 to publicly admit it had handled the situation wrongly.

Board chairman Luke Johnson should be censured and Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell should intervene if the channel fails to take action, Mr Phillips demanded.

Restaurateur Mr Johnson chairs the board and its non-executive members include Labour peer Lord Puttnam, web entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox and ex-BBC News head Tony Hall.

Media watchdog Ofcom has received about 40,000 complaints about the programme.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in