CARY, N.C.: Time Warner cable issued apologies after content from the Playboy Channel found its way onto a couple of networks targeting children. The incident occurred last week in Time Warner’s North Carolina markets, local reports indicate. Playboy programming wound up on two on-demand kids’ channels due to an “equipment failure.”
“Basically, we had a piece of equipment fail and what happened is some previews for the Playboy Channel actually got diverted into the preview box on our Kids on Demand--Ch. 252--and our PreSchool On Demand--Ch. 555,” a Time Warner Cable spokesman told WRAL-TV.
The on-demand screen on the channels showed the kids’ programming menu on one side while “nude women engaged in explicit conversation” appeared in the preview window. The glitch continued from around 6:15 to 8:15 a.m. last Tuesday in several counties. The Time Warner Cable official said it was noticed within about an hour, and took another hour to fix. He said few people called in, but that one was “too many”
Comcast systems in Tucson, Ariz., had a similar glitch last year during the Super Bowl. A 10-second porn clip appeared in the fourth quarter of the game. PBS member station KWBU-TV in Waco, Texas experienced the phenomenon last April on Time Warner Cable systems during an airing of “My Music: ’50s Pop Parade.” That incident was attributed to a “failed QAM tuner.”
