`Vanessa Show' is axed by BBC

THE BBC has axed The Vanessa Show because the controversial daytime chat programme was unable to recover from the scandal which broke earlier this year when it was revealed that some of its guests were impostors.

Peter Salmon, the controller of BBC 1, said last night: "The show will end its run in July and will not be recommissioned. The decision not to recommission has been a tough one, but I doubt any programme could have survived the unprecedented level of scrutiny and adverse publicity ... The problems with the show were quickly acknowledged and we took swift action to resolve them, but while the current production team have worked incredibly hard to reverse the situation, the programme never really recovered."

Vanessa Feltz, the host of the show who was paid pounds 1m-plus to bring her confessional show from ITV to the BBC, is to work on a new programme, provisionally entitled Talking TV. It will look at viewers' attitudes to television.