Comcast Apologizes For Super Bowl Porn Glitch

DrinkDr.Pepper writes "Just after the last touchdown by the Cardinals, with 3 minutes to go in the game, approximately 30 seconds of pornographic material was shown, seen by an unknown number of Comcast customers in Tucson, Arizona who were watching the game in standard definition. Comcast has apologized (they used the word 'mortified') and is issuing a $10 credit to any customer who claims to have been impacted. Various news accounts suggest that the incident was a malicious act, but no one knows how it was done or by whom."

Comments

Is there a difference?

[AKAImBatman]

With the Superbowl commercials being what they were this year, I'm surprised anyone noticed the difference. GoDaddy in particular is getting out of hand, though I was not impressed by the Doritos or NBC commercials either. (At least the Conan commercial was just amusing innuendo.) All around, it was a rather embarrassing year to be watching the Superbowl with the family.

Re:Is there a difference?

[electrons_are_brave]

There's a difference between sex and porn, though. Sure children shouldn't be taught that sex is somehow wrong or taboo. But the way sex is presented in a lot of porn pandering to male adolescent fantasies that have nothing to do with sex with a real live woman. I have nothing against porn, but children don't need to see women moaning with pleasure when nothing particularly pleasurable is happening to them - it wrong information that leads to urealistic expectations.

Re:Is there a difference?

[electrons_are_brave]

Agreed, and what I said wasn't meant to extend to some prudish, Victorian attitude about sex. And I have nothing against porn being made that shows women as playthings for men - any man who doesn't know the difference between how women act in the fantasy porno world and how real women respond sexually is ... well limited. But children don't know this - they see is what they see - they have no context to put it in. Besides that, I would have thought that the reason adults wouldn't want to see porn in front of children is simply beacuse it is pornographic - it's meant to arouse or at least titillate. Surely this introduces a certain awkwardness to the family lunch? Recognising that sex is essentially private act and not wanting it to be commodified to sell whatever isn't the same as prudishness.

Irony...

[MojoRilla]

Several years ago when my home team was in the Superbowl, my comcast cable went out for several hours during the game. Their response was tough luck. They weren't willing to give me any credit. So it is pretty ironic that people "exposed" to 30 seconds of porn are getting $10 back. The moral of the story is that corporations are only responsible when the news media shames them.

It's a broadcast. It may invoke revenue clauses.

[fishbowl]

Laugh about the porn clip (I did, here in Tucson, I yelled "FTW!")

But depending on the origin of the video, Comcast may be on a very real hook for broadcasting copyrighted material without license, and could conceivably be exposed to distribution royalties for a much larger audience than the one that is supposed to be limited to a specific, accountable pay-per-view arrangement.

I would be very surprised if lawyers were not working this out in a damage control mode.

Re:I think

[duckInferno]

The homosexual taboo is a relatively recent development. Many ancient cultures practiced it openly and it was often seen to be as perfectly normal as a relationship between a man and a woman.

A view from Europe

[Don_dumb]

It would be massively more exciting if they didn't keep throwing adverts and extended half time breaks in. It's a great way to lose the tension and the moment - several minutes of drinks adverts.

PS - if you need Cheerleaders, you don't have an atmosphere.