20,000 demand axe for Springer

Television viewers have lodged an astonishing 20,000 complaints over the BBC's plans to screen Jerry Springer: The Opera.

Viewers and church leaders have demanded that the show, which contains 8,000 swear words and what campaigners describe as "debauched behaviour", be axed from broadcast on BBC2 this weekend. The film of the Olivier award-winning West End show features the C-word 297 times and songs with titles including Pregnant by a Transsexual.

The Church of England's spokesman on broadcasting, Bishop of Manchester Nigel McCulloch, said he feared the BBC was breaching boundaries of taste and decency by screening the programme at 10pm on Saturday. But corporation bosses today insisted they would stand defiant against the protests.