Through the Wire
by Todd Spangler and Kent Gibbons -- Multichannel News, 2/9/2009 2:00:00 AM
Comcast: Super Bowl Porn a 'Malicious’ Act
Offensive foul!
It was suddenly Super Bowl “XXX” for an unknown number of Comcast subscribers in Tucson, Ariz., watching Feb. 1’s Big Game, when they were exposed to a 30-second clip from Playboy Enterprises’ Shorteez pay-per-view porn channel.
The material — which reportedly showed the genitalia of male porn star Evan Stone — popped up in the standard-definition feed of NBC affiliate KVOA-TV on the Comcast system, immediately after Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald scored a touchdown lifting his squad to a 23-20 lead over the Pittsburgh Steelers with less than three minutes to go in the game. The HD version was unaffected.
As a goodwill gesture, Comcast offered a $10 credit to Tucson subscribers “impacted” by the porn.
“We can’t undo what happened, but we remain deeply sorry for the impact this situation has had on our customers,” Kelle Maslyn, Comcast’s Tucson corporate-affairs manager, said in a statement.
The footballus interruptus became an instant source of amusement across the Internet, rivaling the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” five years ago.
Comcast ruled out equipment failure as the cause of the incident but at press time, had not publicly identified the perpetrators. The MSO said it was investigating what it called an “isolated, malicious act.”
One cable engineer, who asked for anonymity and had no direct knowledge of the Comcast incident, said it was possible — but very unlikely — that someone had hacked into the system’s HFC plant outside the headend and spliced in the porn. That, however, would require fairly sophisticated equipment and knowledge of the system’s configuration, he added, so it was far more likely that the offending video was inserted at the headend.
KVOA was flooded with viewers calling to complain, and the station quickly fingered Comcast.
“When the NBC feed of the Super Bowl was transmitted from KVOA to local cable providers and through over-the-air antennas, there was no pornographic material,” KVOA president and general manager Gary Nielsen said in a statement posted on the station’s site. “We are appalled this highly inappropriate material was displayed for some Comcast customers.”
Comcast Tucson receives the KVOA feed through an arrangement with Cox Communications, but Mike Dunne, Cox director of media relations for southern Arizona, said no porn was broadcast to his company’s customers.
It’s not the first time X-rated material has escaped a cable system’s protective fencing. In 2007, Comcast broadcast porn to subscribers in New Jersey during an episode of the Disney Channel children’s show Handy Manny.
“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?” Parents Television Council president Tim Winter wondered in a press statement. “TV station 'accidents’ never include a rerun of The Cosby Show.”
Some New Yorkers Lost the Game, Too
A more conventional cable outage afflicted a high-rise apartment building on New York City’s Upper East Side on Feb. 2. WCBS-TV reported that Sunday night residents of The Highgate apartment building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side began experiencing problems with their RCN video service early Sunday and it wasn’t restored until sometime that night. Some residents fled to the myriad local bars to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers’ victory over the Arizona Cardinals.
RCN spokesman Mike Houghton blamed a hub transmitter dedicated to the building. RCN has 100 customers there, he said, and 24 customers called to complain.
RCN is providing affected customers a service credit of one month of cable-TV service, ranging from $75 to $100, and inviting them to a luncheon in February or March with RCN pitchmen Justin Tuck of the New York Giants and Brad Smith of the New York Jets. “The company is looking into the issue to ensure that this problem does not happen again,” the overbuilder said.
Ice Storm Makes Life Un-Super in Louisville
In Louisville, Ky., thousands of Insight Communications customers lost video, data and telephone service after a Jan. 28 ice storm downed electrical wires.
By last Wednesday (Feb. 4), a full week after the storm, most everyone in the area had services restored. It’s Insight’s biggest market, with 300,000 customers in the metro area. An estimated 140,000 cable modems (the easiest to monitor) were out at the peak of the problem, according to Insight.
CEO Michael Willner said “we didn’t have one person specifically complain about [missing] the Super Bowl, up to my level anyway. Because they understood they were in a natural disaster down there.”
He had plenty of e-mails, though, and comments on his blog (Michaelsinsight.com), where he daily updated recovery work by Insight and Louisville Gas & Electric crews.
“Amazingly, the majority of the e-mails that I got and the comments on the blog have been very positive,” he said last Thursday. “People actually took the time to write an acknowledgement that people are really working hard and they appreciated it.”
Willner did have an exchange with one unhappy customer who posted a complaint on DSLreports.com on Jan. 31. The person had electricity restored but Insight hadn’t yet restored his service, two days after that. “Wake up Insight,” the unhappy customer posted. “If you want people to think you are indispensable and valuable then you have to expect they are going to want fast rebound time after outages.”
Other posters chided “debgcd” for that perspective on disaster recovery, and Willner himself weighed in with a post, saying Insight crews were working 24/7 and thanking customers for their patience.
A poster from Shelbyville, Ky., replied to the Insight chief: “Thanks for the explanation Mr. Willner! … I understand what is involved with something like this, and I know the countless hours spent by your dedicated staff to get things working again.”
Willner told The Wire: “It’s a lesson on why being open with your customers and communicating with them even in times of difficulties really is a good thing.”
Contributors: Glen Dickson and John Eggerton of Broadcasting & Cable.
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