NEW YORK (AP) ¿ Don Imus returned to the airwaves yesterday eight months after he was fired for a racially charged remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team, introducing a new cast that included two black comedians.

As he did several times in the days after his comments, Imus condemned his remarks and said he had learned his lesson.

"I didn't see any point in going on some sort of `Larry King' tour to offer a bunch of lame excuses for making an essentially reprehensible remark about innocent people who did not deserve to be made fun of," he said yesterday during the debut on WABC-AM.

He said that every time he would get upset about how he was treated ¿ he was fired from CBS Radio and MSNBC ¿ "I would remind myself that if I hadn't said what I said, then we wouldn't be having this discussion."

Imus also apologised again to the players.

"I will never say anything in my lifetime that will make any of these young women at Rutgers regret or feel foolish that they accepted my apology and forgave me," he said. "And no one else will say anything else on my programme that will make anyone think that I didn't deserve a second chance."

While saying he had learned his lesson, he added ¿ to applause from the live audience at Manhattan's Town Hall ¿ "The programme is not going to change." His debut yesterday completed a comeback that seemed improbable at the height of the uproar last spring over his calling the players "nappy-headed hos''. CBS Radio fired him on April 12, pulling the plug on his "Imus In the Morning" programme that had aired on more than 70 stations and the MSNBC cable network.