The Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) is urging Tegna‘s KREM Spokane, Washington TV station, to conduct a thorough investigation of how a pornographic clip wound up in an Oct. 17 weather report. The Spokane Police Department‘s Special Victims Unit is currently doing so.

The station acknowledged that the clip had appeared in its 6 p.m. news and apologized in its 11 p.m. newscast, but has not explained how the offending video footage made it onscreen.

“Those of us here at KREM 2 want to apologize for something that happened in our 6 p.m. newscast tonight," the on-air apology went. "An inappropriate video aired in the first part of the show. We are diligently working to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again."

Station owner Tegna has signaled it is taking the incident very seriously.

“We are investigating this incident to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again and cooperating with the Spokane police department," said Tegna spokesperson Anne Bentley.

“It is indeed unfortunate that this situation has arisen, as I’m sure it does not reflect the values of the TV station or its leadership,” wrote PTC president Tim Winter. “That is why it is vital for the station to levy swift and public accountability on the perpetrator[s]. The bold actions you take should serve to mitigate the potential financial penalties the station might face. We look forward to your response.”

Spokane SVU said they had received multiple calls around 6:30 p.m. Sunday night (Oct. 17) about the broadcast. It is investigating “how the image appeared and where it came from.“ Station personnel are cooperating, the department pointed out.

The FCC has rules against broadcasting indecent material between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m., and while news is generally exempt, that informal exemption is for news content of public importance.

Comcast continued to move forward on its plans to beef up customer service, announcing that it will open a new 100,000-square-foot customer support center in Tucson, Ariz., in the fall and will hire about 1,125 workers to staff it.

The supportcenter is one of three that Comcast said it would open by the end of 2017 – the others will be in Spokane, Wash. and Albuquerque, N.M. On May 5 in Chicago, during the INTX: Internet & Television Expo there, Comcast unveiled a sweeping customer service initiative that would include hiring about 5,500 customer service representatives during that period.

Comcast announced the Tucson plans in its “Voices” blog.

In the blog posted, senior vice president customer service Tom Karinshak said that at least 15% of the new positions at the Tucson Customer Support Center will be filled by military reservists, veterans and their spouses or domestic partners. Nationally, Comcast is committed to hiring 10,000 reservists, veterans and their spouses or domestic partners between 2015 and 2017 across all levels of the organization.

When the Tucson facility is completed, it will include product training labs, training rooms, video conference facilities, a cafeteria and a fitness center. The Tucson operation also will be home to Comcast ‘s new Spanish-speaking employees specializing in social media.

The bi-lingual Albuquerque customer service center was slated to open first and has already hired about 100 of the expected 450 employees for the site. All together Comcast said it plans to hire about 2,000 of the 5,500 new employees between now and early 2016. The company said it will provide further details on the Spokane operation soon.  

Hiring for the Tucson facility has already begun and Comcast said it has received “thousands” of applications already.

“These new hires will help us bring our customers, in Arizona and across the country, the support they need,” Karinshak said in the blog posting. “These additional hires will be an important step towards our goal of making call wait times shorter and helping customers get their service or billing issues resolved faster.”