Government Has Power To Ban Red Hot TV

The Government has been told that it does indeed have the power to ban the controversial pornographic channel, Red Hot Television (formerly Red Hot Dutch) according to Collette Flesch, director general of EC’s Communication & Culture units.

Speaking at the Financial Times Cable & Satellite conference yesterday Flesch seemed puzzled by the Government’s efforts to get the EC to begin action to ban the station, which broadcasts nightly to an estimated audience of 25,000. The channel was effectively established in this country, she says, and therefore “the UK authorities have the means to suspend and stop such a broadcast”.

The Government does not seem to have taken the same interpretation of the EC directive, however, and is still planning a means to ban the selling and marketing of the decoding equipment used to receive the channel, sold by a Manchester-based company.