Pornographic and other material unsuitable for children to view on television can now be blocked out by parents. The new feature was built into CableVision's new system and is available free of charge to all of the company's subscribers.

The feature was enabled by the introduction of cable boxes by the company last year.

CableVision customer service manager Shavonne Jeffries said the company felt the parental control option was a very important service to offer.

"With our parental controls feature, parents can have the security of knowing that their children will not be watching shows with content designed for mature audiences.

"Once they have their parental control number, parents can lock and unlock channels at their discretion without having to call CableVision again."

CableVision has included a brochure on the new feature with customers' January statements.