Adult broadcaster SEL fined £130,000 by Ofcom

[bassethound]

Ofcom has imposed another major fine on Satellite Entertainment Limited (SEL) for "serious and repeated" breaches of broadcasting rules on its adult entertainment channels.

SEL has been ordered by the media regulator to pay a financial penalty of £130,000 in respect of its Sky channels: Sport XXX Girls, Essex Babes and Northern Birds.

The fine follows a ruling by Ofcom on July 18 this year that ten adult sex chat advertisements aired on the channels breached broadcasting rules over sexual content.

The advertisements typically feature women in suggestive poses encouraging viewers to call a premium rate adult sex chat telephone line.

Since September 2010, all premium rate telephony services, or PRS, have been regulated by Ofcom as long-form advertising, essentially making them teleshopping. This means that they are assessed under the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising.

Ofcom found that the PRS adverts aired on Sport XXX Girls, Essex Babes and Northern Birds ran the risk of causing "serious or widespread offence against generally accepted moral, social or cultural standards".

Despite being shown after the 9pm watershed, the sex chat ads were also found to have potentially caused "harm or distress" to children.

Due to the "serious and repeated" breaches of broadcasting guidelines by SEL, Ofcom has opted to order the firm to pay the £130k fine to the HM Paymaster General.

This is certainly not the first time that SEL has been rebuked by Ofcom, as the broadcaster was rapped for ten breaches of the Broadcasting Code in 2007 and 2008, as well as a further six breaches last year.

SEL's Sports XXX Babes service was fined £20,000 in 2008, while SEL was also criticised in November 2010 for material transmitted on Sport XXX Girl.

This summer, the company was fined a further £90,000 by Ofcom for various breaches on its Essex Babes, Northern Birds and Live XXX Babes channels.

At the time, the regulator noted that SEL had "lost control of its own services" during a six-week period earlier this year, by "allowing another company to transmit using its licences".

[Donnie]

Good old retarded British laws.