Celebrity reality show Big Brother is all set to make a comeback on our television sets despite last year's racial abuse controversy between Jade Goody and Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty, which sparked across the globe.

The Sun newspaper claims the controversial show will make a comeback in January after being axed last year following claims of racial abuse in the house.

This year, the Big Brother spin-off was replaced by Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, which featured celebrities controlling events in a house of ordinary people.

However, the series was not the ratings success of its predecessor and the Sun claims Channel 4 bosses want to see the original back on.

"We never said that Celebrity Big Brother would be gone forever," a Channel 4 source told the newspaper.

"We wanted to give it a 'time out' – a resting period after all the friction and chaos of the Shilpa & Jade saga", the unnamed insider added, "Channel 4 can't afford to let Celebrity Big Brother go – in the publicity or the cash stakes."

The C4 spokeswoman concluded that "no final decision" has been made on the future of the show.