New Delhi: After actress Shilpa Shetty made waves across the globe with Celebrity Big Brother, viewers will not be able to enjoy the celebrity series of the show this season.
The 2008 series is being axed in the wake of the race row that engulfed the show's last run.
Former Big Brother contestant Jade Goody was at the receiving end of public ire while Shilpa walked away with all the honours.
Channel 4 that airs the show however, denied that the race row had deterred celebrities from taking part in the next series.
The channel insisted it was "resting" the programme, along with several other shows, as part of a strategy to free up hours of peak-time viewing for a mix of new programmes.
However, one media analyst suggested Big Brother format had started to show signs of fatigue and Channel 4's announcement was a way of removing the show from the schedules while claiming PR points.
Julian Bellamy, Channel 4's head of programme denying this said, "If we wanted to take the easy path we'd recommission all of these shows, and we'd probably do two series of Celebrity Big Brother if ratings were all we were after."
The network says it will keep its options open over whether the programme returns to television screens in 2009. Big Brother, currently on air, is unaffected by the decision.
(With agency inputs)
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