Soap opera sex on too early, C4 told

Channel 4 has been censured by a TV watchdog for broadcasting a sex scene in a soap opera before the 9pm watershed.

A romp in a hospital ward between Brookside's Max and Jacqui Farnham was "too explicit in sexual content" for the time it was broadcast, said the Independent Television Commission. The ITC upheld five viewer complaints that the scene should not have been shown before 9pm.

In the show, Max, who lost two of his children in a car accident, became emotional after discovering that his wife Jacqui had just escaped another pile-up. Channel 4 said the scenes showed the couple "had turned to each other for comfort in their distressed state" and that the scene "was not graphic or explicit in any way".

But the regulator disagreed: "The couple's reaction to each other was on a physical, as well as emotional level. As they undressed, the scene became more sexually charged," it said.

The complaint has been upheld a week after another watchdog said it was concerned about explicit content creeping into pre-watershed programming.

The Broadcasting Standards Commission chairman, Lord Dubs, warned that broadcasters were "changing gear" from family viewing to more sexually explicit material. A report by the BSC found that complaints about sexual or violent content had doubled over the past year.

A third repeat of Channel 4's Brass Eye satire on paedophilia provoked an angry response from viewers. Sixty-seven complained to the ITC about the programme, although Channel 4 did not uphold the complaints.