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Celebrity Big Brother’ not returning next year

Channel 4 will not be screening ‘Celebrity Big Brother next January after this year’s race row involving Shilpa Shetty.

The last series was overshadowed by the race row about the treatment of Bollywood beauty Shilpa Shetty by Jade Goody, Danielle Lloyd and Jo O�۪Meara.

Channel 4 has aired five seasons of the celebrity version, the most recent of which ran for three weeks. It previously skipped a year between Big Brother seasons four and five.

The move is also part of a shake-up of the broadcaster’s evening schedule which will cull some factual shows.

Channel 4’s Head of Programmes, Julian Bellamy said: “If we wanted to take the easy path we’d re-commission all of these shows and we’d probably do two series of Celebrity Big Brother if ratings were all we were after. These are the decisions of a public service broadcaster in search of the new and the exciting.”

The channel will decide next year whether the celebrity version will return in 2009 or beyond.