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Berlin - The German version of Big Brother has run into trouble after one of its contestants told a series of jokes about Jews.
The head of pay-TV service Premiere, Georg Kofler, fired two employees who allowed the scene to be broadcast on October 2.
The programme features a cast of candidates who live in a house together under the gaze of dozens of television cameras. Viewers call in each week to vote out a player until a winner is left.
The candidate in question,
an Italian-born waiter named Michele from the northern German city of Hamburg, told three anti-Semitic jokes on the patio of the Big Brother house .
"Michele was sternly warned and threatened with being kicked out," a spokesperson said.
Viewers, however, took matters into their own hands and voted Michele out of the show last week.
The Bavarian state media authority said the incident was classified as a "violation of human dignity" - illegal in Germany.
Kofler said Premiere would nevertheless continue to show the programme live because about 50 000 viewers had subscribed to Big Brother.
He added that few people had been watching the offensive scene because it had been broadcast late at night. - Sapa-AFP
'Big Brother' contestant voted out after offensive jokes
