egafd.com

ITC regulations do not differentiate at all between encrypted and unencrypted services after about 10pm - C4 or C5 could show exactly the same stuff as TVX or TAC late night; the adult channels however have a broad agreement for a certain level of content, the 'mainstream' channels have to apply separately for anything overly dirty or sweary. In practice, C4 can show harder stuff than a titty channel because of the 'art' not 'porn' argument. For example, C4 showed a Jean-Luc Goddard film with a woman giving a bloke a blowjob way back in 1986 (at the height of post-Obscene Publications Act prohibition). C4 can and do still show stronger stuff than TVX, but only on rare occasions (usually under the pretext of a docusoap or intellectual series about sex/censorship). Sorry, but the UK based adult channels, like the Sunday Sport, are at least partly an elaborate confidence trick. Now that hardcore is legal over here I am genuinely amazed that these channels are still going.

...or that people are still (thinking of) subscribing! Watch the 10 min preview before the switch over and imagine that 4 hours long and then throw ?5 out the window everynight. That's TVX.