Big Brother slashes eviction vote costs

Channel 4 has been embroiled in scandal over its mishandling of the Shilpa Shetty race row and phone voting blunders in January's Celebrity Big Brother.

Eviction votes for Big Brother 8, which kicks off on Wednesday, have been halved to 25p and Channel 4 will not be making any profit from the show.
The price cut is aimed at keeping voting "fair and transparent" and also to encourage "the highest possible number" of viewers to take part, according to Andy Taylor, Channel 4's managing director of new media.

Big Brother 8 will start this week complete with an on-air apology ordered by TV watchdogs over the Celebrity Big Brother race row.

The TV watchdog Ofcom slammed the broadcaster for "serious errors of judgment" in its handling of the bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty.
The 25p charge will cover all the costs to Channel 4 of administering the eviction votes and includes a 10p donation to charity for each vote cast.

Channel 4 had kept a profit from each 50p call in previous Big Brother and Celebrity Big Brother series. The sum was figured out after administration costs and the 10p charity donation had been deducted.

The new 25p charge applies to calls from BT lines, calls from other fixed networks and mobile networks may vary at the operators' discretion.
Viewers will not be able to vote to evict by text during this BB series of Big Brother.

This is because the mobile phone operators cannot process the votes within a time frame suitable for the voting procedures on the programme. Mr Taylor said: "The voting has been fair and transparent throughout Big Brother's eight years on air, but given the recent focus on the use of premium rate phone lines on TV we want to ensure the audience has absolute confidence in the evictions, which are absolutely integral to the show's success.

"Cutting the cost of phone votes will hopefully encourage the highest possible number of our viewers to interact with the programme." The voting process will be monitored by an external law firm.

In January a mix-up with the premium rate lines in a five-way eviction vote forced Channel 4 to dump all votes and restart the process. Shilpa and housemates Dirk Benedict, Cleo Rocos, Jo O'Meara and Ian Watkins - "H" from Steps had been up for eviction.

An on-screen message had flashed up incorrectly telling fans to call a number to save Shilpa.
Viewers were left perplexed as the voice-over correctly said to call the same number to evict the star, whose treatment at the hands of Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O'Meara sparked international fury.