Playboy show breached TV watershed

A digital TV channel was fined £40,000 yesterday for screening a series of racy shows featuring nude Playboy models before the 9pm watershed during last year's Christmas holiday.

TV regulator Ofcom found E! Entertainment had breached the broadcasting code by showing Girls Of The Playboy Mansion during the day when children could be watching.

It ruled the episodes, screened on 27 December, were "unsuitable for pre-watershed broadcast" and shown at a time when they could have been viewed by unaccompanied children.