The NBC affiliate in Tucson, Ariz., said its Super Bowl broadcast Sunday to Comcast cable TV customers was interrupted by about 10 seconds of pornographic material.
KVOA-TV in Tucson posted a statement on its Web site late Sunday saying that apparently only Comcast subscribers saw the offending material, which was shown just after the last touchdown by the Arizona Cardinals.
"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," said Gary Nielsen, the station's president and general manager, in a statement.
KVOA's posting was updated Monday to include a statement from Comcast corporate affairs manager Kelle Maslyn: "We are mortified by last evening's Super Bowl interruption, and deeply apologize to our customers for the inappropriate programming. We are aggressively investigating the situation including the possibility of foul play."
Mike Dunne, Cox director of media relations for southern Arizona, also was quoted by KVOA. "We have received no evidence that any inappropriate material was broadcast on any of our channels during the Super Bowl," he said. "The alleged incident appears to be isolated to the Comcast territory. We will offer our support to all appropriate organizations to help them determine what happened."
According to the Associated Press, a Comcast spokeswoman said only the cable operator's standard-definition feed was interrupted with porn during the Super Bowl but that the HD feed was not.
In 2007, Comcast broadcast porn to subscribers in New Jersey during an episode of Disney Channel children's show Handy Manny.
