Playboy accidentally played out on children's TV

Preview clips from the Playboy channel were shown for two hours

TV bosses in the US have apologised after preview clips of the Playboy channel were accidentally played out on two children's channels.

A Time Warner Cable (TWC) spokesman said a "technical glitch" was to blame for the mistake, which lasted two hours in parts of North Carolina on Tuesday.

The company was made aware of the error after parents called in to report it.

TWC said it had procedures in place to catch errors, but it was not picked up as it affected only a small area.

'Worst time'

"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," he added.

The error occurred on the Kids On Demand and Kids Preschool On Demand channels where clips from Playboy TV appeared in the top right hand corner.

Although a menu of available children's programming was listed on the left side of the screen, previews showing nude women engaged in explicit conversations were shown where previews of children's shows normally would appear.

Mr Poston said the explicit content aired from about 0615 to 0815 local time in parts of Cary, Garner, Morrisville, Wilson, Goldsboro, Willow Spring and Johnston County, but added most areas just went black when the equipment failed.

Time Warner said it regretted the glitch and had fixed the problem so it would not happen again.