Time Warner apologized profusely yesterday for a “technical glitch” that allowed Playboy Channel previews to play on the selection menus for Kids On Demand and Preschool Kids On Demand for two early morning hours in parts of North Carolina including parts of Cary, Garner, Morrisville, Wilson, Goldsboro, Willow Spring and Johnston County on Tuesday. TWC says that it has procedures to catch such errors, but the affected area was so small that its normal processes didn’t catch it.
In true Murphy’s law fashion, the glitch occurred from 6:15AM to 8:15AM – hours that many young children are watching TV unsupervised while parents are getting ready for work or just waking up. ”We’re very, very sorry it happened – we know parents are concerned,” spokesman Keith Poston told local news station WRAL. ”It took about an hour or so once we were notified of the problem to actually get it fixed. It was a technical glitch and unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels.”
The clips in question appeared on the On Demand menus – a list of available children’s programming was listed on the left side of the screen as usual, but the previews area of the screen, normally reserved for cartoons and other children’s programing, showed “nude women engaged in explicit conversations.”
Time Warner says that the glitch has been repaired and it will not happen again. Whether or not that’s true, the glitch serves as a good reminder to parents that a little supervision of TV time goes a long way.
