Virgin Media Censorship of EPG

Please don't use stupid emoticons on here. How old are you - 10?

I think we're going to go lower, Bruce.

- Michael Baldwin this is Bruce, Michael Baldwin this is Bruce, and Michael Baldwin, this is Bruce.
- Is your name not Bruce then?
- No, it's Michael.
- That's gunna cause some confusion.

And who are you to tell me what to do?

I was much happier when he said he was 9, I believed that.

Good for you.

It is. I think I'd better be moving along, slight inkling that there might be a dozen or so fewer posts soon.

Your elder, your better, and TV Forum's resident snide, nit-picking, grammar nazi, bear-baiting, teasing, over-analysing, self-important grumpy old *******.

Merry Christmas.

*opens mouth to say something, Michael speaks, closes mouth*

Took the words out of my mouth! Now Raheem, kindly stop with the challenging behaviour, it's not appreciated - it makes you look silly.


Back to EPG censorship - I do love the way VM's statements are all jokingly prepared like that 'an*lising the bug'

Yes, those channels will be part of the reason that Virgin (and presumably Sky) have a profanity filter on the EPG listings. It'll be especially important on Virgin where the adult channels are right slap bang in the middle between sport and films. The other factor is that there's no watershed on the EPG so kids can scroll down to more risque names later in the day.

Whether the weekend's fault was a prank or a cock up I suspect we'll never know, it's certainly not the only time such a filter has caused problems. I remember a story about someone called Hilary Ann who tried to get a Hotmail account many years ago but couldn't. The reason was because the word 'aryan' appears in the middle of 'hilaryann'

Of course any good parent will use the hide function to hide the adult channels from the EPG, or at least lock them so a PIN has to be used to get in.

The new TiVo box actually does have a ratings system on EPG and the user can select what shows have to be used with a PIN to see (12+, 15+, 18+) or can turn it off altogether. However it is up to the broadcaster to provide these ratings and I'm sure there are probably some that don't.

I didn't realise you could take them off totally, though of course there is the chance that non-adult channels could have titles or descriptions that you don't want them to see.


It's just occurred to me that Virgin must have relaxed their parental protection at some point. I remember having to put in a PIN every time I watched a post 9pm programme on-demand but haven't done that for ages now