In Which I Offer Money-Saving Advice To Anybody Looking To Start A Porny TV Channel

One of the things I'm paid cash money to do is write media news. News about the media. And as such, I take great pleasure from reading the two-weekly list of taste and decency adjudications from our broadcast regulator Ofcom.

For the most part, it's a blow-by-blow account of inappropriate content on the box or the radio, product placement, and swearing in front of the kiddiewinks. Because if there's one reason Ofcom exists it's to think about the kiddiewinks.

You do feel sorry for the people who have to do these adjudications, because once the complaint's in, they actually have to sit through the X Factor to check whether there are too many ladyparts on view, and whether kiddiewinks may be upset by this (Answer: No).

However, my favourite Ofcom adjudication remains this: The fining of an adult TV channel of £100,000 for accidentally airing actual sexytime to its viewers, rather than fake sexy time.

So far, so dull, until you learn that the actual measured subscription audience for this late-night outrage was 91 people, one of whom complained to the broadcast regulator that his scud was too real for his liking. That works out at £1098.90 per viewer. Ouch.

That being the case, I offer the following advice to anybody thinking of setting up a porny TV channel: DON'T BOTHER. Instead, buy a couple of mopeds, employ two actors, and get them to perform the fake Acts of Venus on the front lawn of any subscriber willing to stump the cash money. It would be cheaper, and provided somebody has thought of the kiddiewinks and locked them in a small room out of the way, the law need not get involved.

If the TV channel in question had done this it would have saved them a lot of trouble, and would have provided steady work for two actors for at least three months. And in these straitened times, that can never be a bad thing.