Comcast is offering a $10 credit to Tucson, Ariz., subscribers "impacted" by a 30-second porn clip that interrupted the local NBC affiliate's Super Bowl XLIII broadcast Sunday.
The clip from Shorteez, a hard-core pay-per-view adult channel owned by Playboy Enterprises, appeared in the standard-definition feed of KVOA-TV on Comcast's local system in the game's fourth quarter immediately after the Arizona Cardinals scored to take a 23-20 lead with less than three minutes to go in the game. The HD version was unaffected.
The 30-second clip showed full-frontal male nudity, the Tucson Citizenreported. A second clip, which also aired during the telecast, showed about 10 seconds of end credits for Club Jenna, another Playboy-owned adult pay-per-view channel, according to the newspaper.
"We can't undo what happened, but we remain deeply sorry for the impact this situation has had on our customers," Comcast Tucson corporate affairs manager Kelle Maslyn said in a statement Monday. "To that end, we will be issuing a $10 credit to any Comcast video customer in Tucson who was impacted. While this credit won't change what happened, we hope that it will demonstrate to our customers, and to the Tucson community, how seriously we are taking this situation."
Maslyn said Comcast is "continuing with our investigation into what we believe may have been an isolated, malicious act, and will aggressively pursue all leads until we come to resolution."
Comcast customers in the Tucson area seeking the credit were directed to call (888) 315-8219.
"We are appalled this highly inappropriate material was displayed for some Comcast customers," Gary Nielsen, president and general manager of KVOA Communications, said in a statement posted on KVOA's site.
Comcast Tucson receives the KVOA feed through an arrangement with Cox Communications. Mike Dunne, Cox director of media relations for southern Arizona, said no porn was broadcast to the MSO's customers. "We have received no evidence that any inappropriate material was broadcast on any of our channels during the Super Bowl," he said in a statement Monday. "The alleged incident appears to be isolated to the Comcast territory. We will offer our support to all appropriate organizations to help them determine what happened."
Media watchdog group Parents Television Council president Tim Winter urged the companies involved to take immediate steps to ensure that "this type of indecent material does not air again during times when children are in the audience."
"These ‘accidents' seem to happen more often than they should, and if it truly was an accident, why is it always porn that's aired?" Winter said in a statement. "TV station ‘accidents' never include a rerun of The Cosby Show.... if someone intentionally caused it, then that person or persons need to be properly dealt with."
In a similar 2007 incident, Comcast broadcast porn to subscribers in New Jersey during an episode of Disney Channel children's show Handy Manny.
