News ratings soar unexplicitly

STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Sweden's state broadcaster SVT on Monday faced ridicule for mistakenly showing a porn movie in the background of a news broadcast over the weekend.

Viewers of a 5-minute news update at midnight Saturday could see explicit scenes from a Czech porn movie on a TV screen behind news anchor Peter Dahlgren.

The monitor -- one of many on the wall of a control room visible behind the studio -- normally shows other news channels during broadcasts.

But staffers who earlier in the evening had watched a sports event on cable channel Canal Plus -- which often shows X-rated films after midnight -- had forgotten to switch it back, said news director Per Yng.

"This is highly embarrassing and unfortunate," Yng said. "It must not happen again."

A producer quickly spotted the sex scenes and ran into the control room and turned off the monitor, Yng said.

He said there had been no complaints from viewers about the mishap, but "enormous interest from media."

Swedish tabloids on Monday poked fun at the steamy broadcast, jokingly changing the name of the show -- Rapport -- to "Rapporn."

Magnus Akerlund, who oversees the hourly news updates, told tabloid Expressen he was "shocked and dismayed" at the mistake.

"It's a huge blunder by us," he said.