Kanal 5 slapped with £10,000 fine

The Independent Television Commission has fined Sweden's fifth most popular television channel, Kanal 5, £10,000 for transmitting a sexually explicit image during daytime television.

Kanal 5 is available on the Sirius 2 and Thor 2 satellites, and broadcasts from the UK - hence coming under ITC jurisdiction. The channel transmitted a monochrome still "graphic" image of a couple having sex as part of a trailer for an evening sex advice show, Fraga Olle. Although the programme itself airs at 22:00, the trailer was shown through daytime, starting at 08:00 - sometimes through children's programmes. In total, the trailer aired 67 times between March 20th and 26th.

In its judgement, the ITC ruled that the trailer breached the "family viewing and the watershed" and "sexual portrayal before the watershed" sections of the Programme Code - and that "the breach demonstrated a serious lack of rigour in the channel's approach to compliance". Kanal 5 has already been in breach of the ITC's programme code twice this year.