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Tucson Comcast: We Wuz Hacked!: Cable provider apologizes to customers who received porn clips during last 3 minutes of Super Bowl.(Albuquerque Journal (NM) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Feb. 2--Comcast apologized profusely to Tucson-area customers who received a pornographic clip from Shorteez, an adult cable television channel, toward the end of Super Bowl XLIII on Sunday and blamed the interruption on foul play, a company spokeswoman told the Arizona Daily Star this morning. "Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act," Comcast spokeswoman Kelle Maslyn told the Star in an e-mail. "We are mortified by last evening's Super Bowl interruption and we apologize to our customers. We are conducting a thorough investigation to determine how this happened." The clip lasted about 30 seconds and showed full-frontal male nudity, Maslyn told the paper. Only those Comcast subscribers receiving a standard definition signal saw the clip, while those who watched the game on high definition cable weren't affected, and the company is working on a plan to compensate the affected customers, Maslyn said. The paper's newsroom was flooded with calls from irate viewers who said the porn cut into the game with less than 3 minutes left to play, just after Arizona Cardinals receiver Larry Fitzgerald Jr. scored on a touchdown pass from Kurt Warner to put the Cardinals ahead, the Star reported. The Super Bowl was being shown locally on KVOA, the NBC affiliate, which sent both its standard and high definition signals to Cox Communications, which then sent the signals on to Comcast, but there was no porn on the signal sent from KVOA, station president Gary Nielsen told the Star. The station has so far received no complaints from people who watched the game on Cox, on satellite providers such as DirecTV or Dish Network or from people who saw the game on an over-the-air signal, Nielsen said. "This did not emanate from us," Nielsen told the paper. "We are dismayed that this had to happen." To see more of the Albuquerque Journal, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.abqjournal.com. Copyright (c) 2009, Albuquerque Journal, N.M. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |