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Comcast is examining whether a malicious attack is behind the interruption of the company’s Super Bowl coverage Sunday by a pornographic film in some areas of Tucson. The interruption, which lasted less than 30 seconds, affected customers watching the company’s standard definition coverage but not high-definition customers, a Comcast spokeswoman said.

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.

“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.

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WASHINGTON (AFP) — Cable television provider Comcast apologized to customers in Tucson, Arizona, on Tuesday after the airing of a 30-second clip from a porn movie during the Super Bowl broadcast.

"We are mortified by the Super Bowl interruption, and we apologize to our customers," Comcast said in a statement.

"We can't undo what happened, but we remain deeply sorry for the impact this situation has had on our customers," the Philadelphia-based company said.

Comcast said it planned to issue a 10-dollar credit to subscribers whose broadcast of the final minutes of the game was interrupted by a scene from a pornographic movie in which a woman unzips a man's pants and performs a sexual act.

"While this credit won't change what happened, we hope that it will demonstrate to our customers, and to the Tucson community, how seriously we are taking this situation," Comcast said.

"We are continuing with our investigation into what we believe may have been an isolated, malicious act, and will aggressively pursue all leads until we come to resolution," the company added.

Comcast said it did not know how many customers were affected, but a local newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, said it appeared to have been thousands.

The newspaper said it was flooded with calls from irate viewers following the incident, which came with less than three minutes left in the game between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The clip was apparently 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.

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