Super Bowl in Tucson interrupted by porn clip

A "malicious act" resulted in the airing of a 30-second clip from a porn movie during the Super Bowl broadcast in Tucson, Arizona, the Arizona Daily Star reported Monday.

"We did an extensive preliminary check on our technical systems, and everything appeared to be working properly when the incident occurred," Kelle Maslyn, a spokeswoman for cable TV provider Comcast, told the newspaper.

"Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act."

Thousands of Comcast subscribers in the Tucson area had the Super Bowl interrupted for about 30 seconds on Sunday by a scene from a porn movie in which a woman unzips a man's pants and performs a sexual act.

Comcast has contacted the Federal Communications Commission as well as local authorities to investigate the matter. But an initial review showed that the company’s technical systems functioned properly at the time of the incident, suggesting someone deliberately seeking to interrupt the broadcast rather than a technical glitch.

The Daily Star said it was flooded with calls from irate viewers following the incident which came with less than three minutes left in the game.

It said the US Attorney's office in Phoenix is looking into the incident.

"We take this matter seriously," spokesman Wyn Hornbuckle told the newspaper. "We?re working with appropriate agencies to review the incident."

The newspaper said the clip was from a porn movie being shown on another Comcast pay-per-view channel at the time.

The Federal Communications Commission fined the CBS television network a record 550,000 dollars after singer Janet Jackson briefly bared her breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show.

“We are mortified by the incident and we apologize to our customers,” the Comcast spokeswoman said. The company will likely issue credits to customers who were affected, though the amount remains to be determined.

The station from which Comcast picked up its feed was NBC affiliate KVOA, which said it provided Cox Communications with a feed of the broadcast via fiber line, which Cox subsequently sent to Comcast, also via a fiber line. KVOA said on its Web site that only Comcast customers saw the pornographic images and that customers of other operators, like DirecTV Group and Cox Communications, as well as over-the-air viewers, received “clean feeds.” The incident “sparked a flurry of angry phone calls and emails to our newsroom,” the company wrote on its Web site.

The Comcast spokeswoman said it was not immediately apparent how or where the breach occurred. Cable signals pass through several pieces of transmission facilities, including out to an operator’s local offices and to customers ‘ homes.

This is the first time the company is aware of its signal being tampered with in this way, the Comcast spokeswoman said.