Big Brother to slash phone vote costs..

Good news for fans of Channel 4's Big Brother 8 as the cost of voting for house evictions has been halved to just 25p.

According to Andy Taylor, Channel 4's managing director the price cut is aimed at keeping voting "fair and transparent" and also to encourage "the highest possible number" of viewers to take part.

The last series of Big Brother was embroiled in the race row controversy surrounding Bollywood actress Shilp Shetty, for which the show was later blasted by the industry watchdog Ofcom who stated that the shows producers were guilty of 'serious errors of judgement'.

Big Brother 8 starts on Wednesday night.