Sponsor pulls out of British TV show amid racism allegations

A sponsor has ended its support for Britain's Celebrity Big Brother as the controversy heats up over alleged racist abuse on the Channel 4 reality TV show.

Carphone Warehouse, a chain of stores selling mobile phones, suspended its support for the show on Thursday, as thousands of complaints streamed into the station and to Britain's broadcast regulator.

At the centre of the controversy is Indian film star Shilpa Shetty. Her housemates have made fun of the way she eats, the way she talks and even her name.

Shetty, 31,has been asked whether she has "stubble" and whether she lived in a house or a shack, while one housemate has made derogatory remarks about Indian hygiene.

Shetty herself has denied that racism is behind the conflict. "I don't feel that there was any racial discrimination," she said in a televised statement on Thursday.

And Channel 4 chief executive Andy Duncan said at a press conference Thursday that the show would continue.

"We cannot with certainty say that the comments directed at Shilpa have been racially motivated," he said.

The number of viewers to the game show, which involves voting some contestants out of the house weekly, has soared to more than three million as news about the allegations spread.

But so has the number of complaints, with most viewers considering the abuse heaped on Shetty to be racially motivated.

Ofcom, the independent regulator of Britain's media and telecom industries, said it had received 27,000 complaints about alleged racial abuse on Celebrity Big Brother by Thursday afternoon.

Sponsors for some of the contestants are getting cold feet. A chain of perfume shops also said it would stop selling a fragrance that Jade Goody has endorsed. Shetty has repeatedly been reduced to tears by Goody.

And an insurance company said it will end a modeling contract with another Big Brother contestant, former beauty queen Danielle Lloyd.

Politicians weigh in amid protests in India

Newspapers in India are featuring the story on front pages and protesters have burned figures in effigy to complain about Shetty's treatment.

"To see her cry on television while a bunch of people abuse her is very painful thing for a parent," Shetty's mother, Sunanda, has told Britain's Sky News television in Mumbai, India.

BothIndian and British leaders have been compelled to comment on the issue.

"I haven't seen it,"British Prime Minister Tony Blair said of the show, adding "Racism should be opposed in all forms."

British Finance Minister Gordon Brown, in India on a trade mission, found himself defending his country's reputation for tolerance.

Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram denied the issue has erupted into a diplomatic spat.

"I think this will pass, but let me assure you there is no strain in the ties between the government and the people of India and the government and the people of Britain," he said.

Shetty and Goody will reportedly go up against each other later this week, with one to be voted off the reality television program by viewers.