March 29, 2001 03:17pm
Two porn channels pulled by Canadian satellite-TV firm
Source: Reuters
(TORONTO) -- Two hard-core porn TV channels were taken off the air on Wednesday by a Canadian satellite broadcaster because their programming could violate Canadian regulations.
``We feel it's important to respond promptly, and to investigate any concerns that have been raised with respect to the quality standards of our programming,'' said David McLennan, president and chief operating officer of Bell ExpressVu.
Bell ExpressVu is a subsidiary of Canadian telecoms giant BCE Inc. (Toronto:BCE.TO - news), a staid blue chip company whose stock has often been described as a favorite of mothers and orphans.
The company said the two channels, True Blue and Extasy, will be stopped indefinitely while Bell ExpressVu reviews the concerns raised.
A Tuesday news report on CBC-TV, Canada's national public broadcaster, said the channles showed hard-core porn movies that had not been cleared by Canada's provincial censor boards. No movie is allowed to be broadcast in the country without being seen and rated by a provincial film review board.
After viewing some of the programming on True Blue and Extasy that was supplied by the CBC, Bob Warren, chairman of the Ontario Film Review Board, said he would never have approved them.
Warren described the censor board's guidelines as follows: ``We don't allow coercion. We don't allow degradation, humiliation, dehumanization.''
Bell ExpressVu said all the movies running on its channels have been cleared by censors in Quebec and Ontario.
It said it maintains an adult programming distribution policy that it believes ``ensures compliance with the legal and regulatory standards governing the broadcast of adult programming by pay-per-view licensees in Canada.''
Bell ExpressVu added: ``Specifically, the policy restricts the broadcast of material depicting sexual degradation, violence, humiliation or dehumanization.''
The CBC said the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the country's broadcast watchdog, had launched an investigation into Bell ExpressVu's adult services.
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