'Racist' slur on 'Big Brother' pulls in 4.6 million

Over 4.6 million tuned into watch Channel 4's Big Brother last night, and viewing a unedited 'racist' comment by now-ejected housemate, Emily Parr.

Though watched by 26.4% of the audience at that time, and achieving the second highest audience for the series so far, the show prompted 140 complaints to Ofcom.

A warning was twice given to viewers that they were about to hear a racial term, before screening footage which contained the word "nigger". Apart for the first instance, all subsequent mentions of the word were bleeped.

Channel 4 executives have defended the decision to show the footage.

On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme this morning, chief executive Andy Duncan, said: "It was important to show it, to let people see the whole context in which it was said, and to form their own opinion about what was said and how she said it," adding that the matter was "regrettable but dealt with swiftly and precisely."

Yesterday, Angela Jain, head of Big Brother and E4, appeared on Sky News, saying: "We don't want to hang Emily out to dry, so it's important for us to not censor the conversation and allow viewers to see the proportionate response we believe we took in relation to the use of that word."