Channel 4 bosses are not planning to air 24 hour footage of the Big Brother house when the celebrity version of the show returns this January.

In a bid to avoid fiascos like the Shilpa/Jade row on the last series in 2007, Channel 4 bosses have decided that the public will only be shown footage chosen by them on the nightly, hour long TV show.

A show source told The Sun: “Fans will be royally short-changed. What used to be a reality show has turned into a farce.

“They’ve scrapped the 24-hour feed for many reasons but the main one is to get more control.

“It’s now just an entertainment show where punters can see celebrities doing silly tasks.

“If the show isn’t 24 hours then it’s lost any caché it once had. Now it’s more like a watered-down version of I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here! than anything else.”

A spokesman for Channel 4 said: “Last summer we found that rather than watching live streaming on red button, viewers much preferred watching more bite-size video clips from that day’s action.

“During the series, there were almost 19million clips viewed — a 58 per cent increase.

“As they proved such a huge hit with fans, we’ve listened and responded to how viewers now consume Big Brother.

“We will still be showing all the other great shows that make up the Celebrity Big Brother experience.”