NEW YORK, April 10: A famous talk Radio/Television talk show host, Don Imus, based in New York – syndicated world over -- who in the past made racist remarks against Muslims, was suspended on Tuesday after the outcry over his racially disparaging remarks about a women basketball team.

The action came on Monday after a day of intensifying pressure on Mr Imus from American black leaders, who expressed outrage at his description last Wednesday of the Rutgers team as “nappy-headed ho's”.

Imus tried to fend off calls for resignation by appearing yesterday on a syndicated radio programme that has the Rev. Al Sharpton as its host and making a more complete apology for what he said were “repugnant, repulsive, and horrible” comments.

NBC television News, which does a simulcast broadcast of Mr. Imus's radio programme on its cable news channel MSNBC, was the first to act, suspending Mr Imus and calling his comments “racist and abhorrent”.

CBS Radio, which is his chief employer, followed, saying it, too, would take Mr Imus, off the air for two weeks.

NBC also warned that it would not tolerate insensitive remarks in the future. Mr Imus had promised to change the tenor of the show, NBC said in a statement.

“Our future relationship with Imus is contingent on his ability to live up to his word,” NBC said. CBS made no statement other than that it was suspending Mr Imus, who has been the host of “Imus in the Morning” for more than 30 years.

Don Imus in a television interview said he wanted to try to “see if they'll (Women basketball Team) forgive me and if there is something that can be established here that I can do to begin to build something positive out of this — and then who knows?”