Agency report

London, May 25: Channel 4 will be forced to broadcast a series of apologies over alleged racist bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in Celebrity Big Brother after British media watchdog Ofcom ruled it contravened its broadcasting code.

Ofcom's adjudication report concluded that Channel 4 breached the broadcasting code after making "serious editorial misjudgements" that were "compounded by a serious failure of its compliance process".

As a result of the breach, a statutory sanction will require Channel 4 to air a summary of Ofcom's findings on three occasions during the next series of Big Brother.

The summary will be aired at the start of the Big Brother 8 launch programme on Wednesday, the following morning's re-versioned repeat and the first eviction show.

Channel 4 must publish transcripts of a series of previously unheard and potentially racist conversations that took place within the Celebrity Big Brother house.

However, Channel 4 has escaped a fine. Ofcom's findings and the statutory sanction of on-air apologies also apply to S4C, which broadcasts Celebrity Big Brother in Wales.

"Ofcom takes allegations of racist abuse and bullying on television extremely seriously. An unprecedented number of complaints were received and, whilst Celebrity Big Brother was still on-air, we launched a full investigation," said chief executive of Ofcom Ed Richards.