LONDON: Channel 4 apologised on Tuesday for "any offence" caused by the Shilpa Shetty-Jade Goody race row on Celebrity Big Brother, and ordered an inquiry into allegations that the spat was engineered to boost ratings.

Britain's media regulator Ofcom, which received an unprecedented 40,000 complaints about the show, is conducting its own review of Channel 4's conduct during the controversy.

The apology came as the channel was embroiled in another race row after Ofcom said it had received complaints that a participant on the Shipwrecked series had made offensive comments about black people.

A meeting of Channel 4's board members on Monday was dominated by criticism of the way the Goody-Shetty conflict was handled. Later, it admitted that many people may have been "offended" by what happened on the show.

"An important debate"

In a statement, its chairman, Luke Johnson, said: "The Channel 4 board recognises that the events of the last week on Celebrity Big Brother have provoked an unprecedented level of public complaint. We believe this has triggered an important debate. Clearly many people were worried and offended by what they saw. I want to reassure them that we take the views of our audience very seriously and profoundly regret any offence that may have been caused."

The board, which met amid growing calls for the series to be scrapped, ordered a review of what Mr. Johnson euphemistically described as the "editorial and compliance processes that support Big Brother."

This was interpreted as a warning to the makers of the programme, which has been denounced as a "grotesque travesty" of Channel 4's public service remit.

Last week, Carphone Warehouse, Britain's biggest chain of mobile phone stores, withdrew its £3 million-a-year sponsorship of the series amid threats from other advertisers to pull out.

Media observers said Big Brother had been effectively put on "probation," though Mr. Johnson said the current series, which concludes on Sunday, would go on.

The board met after Andy Duncan, chief executive of Channel 4, provoked criticism for insisting that the bullying of Ms. Shetty was not racist, and that the programme had in fact helped raise issues that needed to be debated. He was also criticised for not intervening to stop the row despite protests across Britain and India.

Labour's Asian MP Keith Vaz, who tabled an early day motion in the Commons calling for "urgent action," said the campaign against the show would continue until it was pulled.

Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, said he was disappointed that the channel had still not acknowledged that "what we witnessed was racial bullying."

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