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Superbowl surprise in Tucson
Great game yesterday, but it had a surprise locally. It's in the final minutes, I think while the AZ Cardinals were holding onto a two point lead, so probably half the TVs in the city were tuned to it.
Scene cuts to woman and man, woman reaching into his pants. I thought it a bit much for a Superbowl commercial -- I mean, there are kids watching! Then down go his pants, and there is about 5-10 seconds of full frontal nudity, and I do mean FULL.
I thought maybe the TV had malfunctioned somehow. But the morning paper reports that this happened throughout the Tucson Comcast network. Somehow segments of a porn channel got spliced into the Superbowl broadcast.
I suspect that promptly at 9 AM (1) Comcast is going to get a bunch of calls from upset parents and (2) whoever was working on the broadcast is going to be undergoing a grilling.
Comments
To be honest, the porn was the better option at that point in the game for Cardinal fans as the next 2 minutes would be disappointing.
Posted by: mike123 at February 2, 2009 07:17 AM
"Spliced in?" -- As someone that did that work, that doesn't happen by accident. It would take a great leap of faith and ignorance to say that was an accident.
I wonder how big of a deal this is going to be-- somehow I think it is going to be a lot smaller of a reaction than everyone seemed to have to the 1/3 of a second of titty some people might have seen in 2004. The sad thing is this actually deserves a reaction.
Posted by: Ryan at February 2, 2009 08:46 AM
Of course the difference in 2004 was that (1) the "wardrobe malfunction" was part of the NFL-sanctioned Superbowl event, not a malfunction (or hacking, or purposeful messing about with) of the local cable affiliate and (2) everybody watching the Superbowl nationwide saw it. Here, only those people in AZ watching that particular cable channel saw it.
But yeah, I'm wondering how much "coverage" (or lack of coverage) this will get and how much of a kerfuffle it will generate. Seems that societal standards and tolerance for this stuff has been sliding dramatically over the past several years.
Posted by: Bill at February 2, 2009 09:36 AM
No doubt a PeTA terrorist in protest of the banning of their ad.
Posted by: Melancton Smith at February 2, 2009 10:20 AM
It's pretty damned difficult to switch in a channel like that anywhere except the head end.
It was either the traditional "disgruntled employee" or they've got serious security issues in their switch room.
Posted by: bud at February 2, 2009 10:52 AM
"This thread is worthless without pics"
Posted by: Tim Weaver at February 2, 2009 02:39 PM
Be careful what you wish for...
Posted by: jesse at February 2, 2009 04:30 PM
Don't get me started on COMCAST, and the months of frustration trying to settle my late son's account with them.
I would rather go without than go with them.
Posted by: CDR D at February 2, 2009 05:27 PM
ROFLMAO @ Tim! Quote of the day.
I heard a little about it, but I haven't bothered to look into it. I swear the radio mentioned it was happened in other places. I think they tried to claim it had something to do with digital vs standard...I really should go look into it first, but if that happened now, and was related to digital vs analogue just wait til the transition happens.
Posted by: Tom at February 2, 2009 07:37 PM
Don't let your children watch football.
Why count on broadcasters to be family friendly? You know the culture surrounding football and some of the people attending these things. Football is not family friendly.
Comcast isn't the issue here, it's the station that ran it's issue, one of the big 3 (NBC, CBS and ABC).
When you turn on the television and put on live sporting shows, you lose that control you normally have as a parent. You lost that control and this happened. Don't let your kids watch football.
Posted by: Paul H. at February 2, 2009 07:39 PM
Cable stations are not like they used to be, with a "switch room." All the digital stuff uses computerized equipment to receive from the head end, digitize, receive digital signals from sats and other sources, multiplex it all together, add the guide info and other info and so on.
That said, it seems a bit of a coincidence to have been an accident.
Posted by: Jim at February 3, 2009 01:02 AM
my real name is joe
Posted by: same guy as last post at February 6, 2009 08:11 AM