after claims that a pornographic clip was aired during technical difficulties.

Bermuda Broadcasting Company's CBS television feed was disrupted on Tuesday night by the loss of the Galaxy 4 satellite over the US.

And although ZBM/Cable 3 was only off the air for ten minutes, technical director Delano Ingham said viewers would not have seen a snippet of an adult film at 8.15 a.m. on Wednesday.

But one man -- who asked not to be named -- claimed he saw a two-second clip of a woman beginning to pull her dress up. He added there were several less innocuous short signals before the screen went completely black.

"I did not see flesh, but you only see breasts that size in porno movies,'' the man said.

"I was the operator at the time,'' Mr. Ingham said. "The satellite feed automatically tracked and what I saw was University Chapel Ministries. That's what I saw standing there.'' Mr. Ingham said he switched the tracking from automatic to manual and turned on a blank screen until he had the back-up signal locked in.

He added there would not have been any other signals as "stuff like that is not broadcast in the clear''.

Programme director Suzann Holshouser said the station had not received any complaints about the alleged two-second clip.

Problems began on Tuesday evening when the onboard control system and its backup switch failed and the satellite rotated out of position.

About 90 percent of paging systems in the US and the feeds of the Chinese Television Network, and CNN's Airport Network were knocked out.

CBS immediately moved its signal to the Galaxy 7 satellite, but received a flood of calls from concerned affiliates.

"We called and the network indicated that we should move to the alternate satellite,'' Mr. Ingham said.

After initially not having an explanation, Mr. Ingham said CBS was eventually able to say it knew what the problem was.

Telecomunications provider Cable and Wireless yesterday said it did not use the Galaxy 4 satellite.

Local pager supplier Telecom (Bermuda) said it had not seen a disruption in its access to the SkyPager network.

"We have not heard whether or not it has affected us as yet,'' Telecom spokesman Joe Coady said yesterday.