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Big Brother is dumped by Carphone Warehouse
Last updated at 18:52pm on 08.03.07Carphone Warehouse has dumped its sponsorship of Channel 4 reality show Big Brother following the racism row which engulfed the celebrity version of the show two months ago.
The mobile phone retailer revealed on Thursday it was scrapping its £3 million a year deal with the show, which it has had for four years, after the alleged racist bullying of Shilpa Shetty, which led to an embarrassing diplomatic storm.
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• Big Brother race accusations: How events unfolded
• Jade admits Shilpa suffered racism
• Channel 4's Big Brother 'delight'
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Celebrity Big Brother winner Shilpa Shetty was a guest at Elizabeth Hurley's wedding. The bullying row around Shilpa led to Carphone Warehouse withdrawing sponsorship from Big Brother
Gordon Brown waded into the row during a landmark visit to India when the footage of Jade Goody and fellow housemates Jo O'Meara and Danielle Lloyd apparently bullying the Bollywood actress, was beamed around the continent.
India made a formal protest and demonstrators burned effigies of the programme makers when the furore broke out back in January. Tony Blair was even quizzed about the show in parliament.
Carphone Warehouse suspended its links with the Endemol-produced series when the row erupted in January. Over 46,000 viewers have so far complained to media regulator Ofcom over the alleged abuse.
The company said: "We constantly review our sponsorship relationships and feel that having suspended the sponsorship during this year's Celebrity Big Brother, that now is a good time to look at that partnership again.
"We have concluded that the huge publicity around the show and our involvement within that means that now is the time for us to look for an alternative,"
Carphone Warehouse said it would still spend a "large proportion" of its marketing budget with Channel 4, including buying ad slots during Big Brother and ads on the programme's website.
Media regulator is currently carrying out an investigation into the programme, while Channel 4 is carrying out is own probe into the way it handle the row, which saw the programme become one of the most complained about in the history of British broadcasting.
Channel 4 bosses were accused of battening down the hatches and ignoring the obvious upset the programme was causing as well as being charged with using the row to boost ratings for the series, which had been struggling until the controversy over racism.
Channel 4 said it was currently in talks with a number of "high profile" brands about sponsoring the eighth series of the show.
Reader views (4)
Mwa! Mwa!
Doesn't that air kiss just ooze insincerity?
- Steve R, London, UK
Nope, sorry Jay, it's not just the 'guests' - the show itself is rubbish. With any luck we won't have to skip pages of rubbish about it in the papers.
- Peter, London, UK
It's not the show that's dross, it's the people they get on it, Lloyd. But, saying that, if we had to look at a bunch of posh MPs in there it would hardly be entertaining now would it?
- Jay, London
Hopefully this means that Channel 4 will drop this dross completely leading to all TV companies dropping reality TV and going back to decent programming.
- Lloyd, London
