Porn station considers toning down blue films

(First Edition)

RED HOT DUTCH, the television pornography channel is considering toning down the explicit content of its blue movies in the face of growing criticism.

But publicity about orgies and lesbian couplings is helping to sell subscriptions to the satellite station, according to the British parent company, Continental Television.

Its executive consultant, Mark Garner, said the company's directors were meeting in the Netherlands this week to consider excluding certain types of scene. 'Apart from that we will go on as we have been doing. Last week we had 1,600 new subscriptions on top of the 20,000 or so we already had in Britain.'

Storylines and dialogue are minimal in the films, seen after midnight. The Broadcasting Standards Council is calling on the Government to ban the station, but EC law means Red Hot Dutch is legal all over Europe if it is acceptable in just one country.

A council spokeswoman, Katherine Lannon, said yesterday: 'A lot of people are not aware of how pornographic it is. This is heavy stuff, quite shocking.'

The Department of National Heritage said it was still considering the Broadcasting Standards Council's recommendations.

Roger Gale MP, chairman of the Tory backbench media committee, said: 'I am personally particularly concerned that these programmes may lead to a cottage industry in hard-core porn videos as viewers with decoders record them and copy them for sale.'