Good Friday broadcast morphs to "Girls Gone Wild"
Saturday, April 11, 2009
The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA--A cable network's early morning broadcast of Good Friday service at the Vatican abruptly changed to something wildly different--a 30-second "Girls Gone Wild" ad.

Comcast spokesman Jeff Alexander says the 2 a.m. Friday programming snafu was due to a required test for the Emergency Alert System. He says such tests are usually done in the overnight hours.

The test automatically tunes viewers to a preselected channel that would provide information in the event of an emergency. But during tests, the channel airs regular programming, which in this case included a paid advertisement for the racy videos.

Alexander says the glitch affected the cable network's entire local area, but only one person called to complain.