Is this what passes for advertising these days? You have to wonder what kind of minds - because there would have been a lot of people feeding into this ''marketing strategy'' - come up with this stuff and, worse, OK it? Even though no bells had rung within Foxtel or, presumably, SBS, they did once the billboard went up. Community outrage ensued, which is the only positive to emerge from the whole tawdry episode. Alerted to the outcry, a network spokesman denounced the billboard as ''appalling'', admitted a failure of judgment, questioned approval processes and apologised. It was down by Thursday. All of which was straight out of the mea culpa playbook. But despite the apology and expressions of surprise, network and channel executives must have surely seen the controversy coming. The clue to this came in the reported comments of Chris Keely, general manager of the Foxtel station the ad was seeking to market. You could reasonably infer he was up for a fight, telling Sydney's Daily Telegraph the image of bestiality reflected his station's ''bold new attitude''. ''We want to bring you stories and ideas you'd never think of Googling,'' he said. ''And challenge what you think is acceptable or unacceptable.'' It was positively evangelical. So much so, that it sounded hollow when he later apologised, saying: ''We certainly did not intend to upset anyone with this campaign.''

WTF? Did he expect us to chuckle? It became even hollower when his channel tried to run the ad in Fairfax newspapers, days after the billboard controversy, only to have network executives pull it at the last moment. They would have paid close to $200,000 to do so, which suggests someone belatedly found some scruples. What an unholy mess. It's not just the marketing of Foxtel programs that makes me shudder, it's the programs themselves. The day before the billboard brouhaha, I had stumbled on a reality TV program on the MTV channel that left me speechless. Called The Valleys, it featured a group of Welsh 20-somethings undergoing particularly painful tattooing and depilation services and then discussing them with extremely limited and obscene vocabularies. Suffice to say, there is plenty more of this stuff across the network. Foxtel has now been with us for almost two decades and is connected to about 30 per cent of Australian households. It wants more, many more, though. Co-owned by News and Telstra, it's a healthy contributor to the profits of both companies. Soon it will be a key part of the publishing business Murdoch is spinning off later this year. He needs Foxtel's growing profits to offset the shrinking margins of his newspaper divisions. That's why you will not find any News Ltd papers or websites taking the network to task over, well, anything. Which is a pity, because there are legitimate questions to be asked. Such as, why is it so hellishly expensive?

The average rate per user is said to be $99 a month, which is the sort of yield overseas cable operators dream about. And why is it so hard to get things you actually want? I only want to watch news and sports, yet have to wade through a morass of unwatchable pap to get there. And, of course, pay for it. Movie channel viewers were outraged earlier this year when Foxtel management cut the number of offerings and then raised the price. Despite a vigorous social media campaign, the network never budged. I could not help thinking if it had been Coles or Woolworths pulling a similar stunt the Murdoch tabloids would have been all over it. But it was barely mentioned. Then, of course, there are the ads. Somehow, Foxtel has convinced subscribers to pay extortionate rates for programs and then it loads them up with commercials. The sad reality is you can get away with this sort of arrogance when you have a monopoly in one industry, pay TV, and a stranglehold on another, news. Will it get better any time soon? Pigs might fly. Bruce Guthrie is a former editor of The Age and The Sunday Age.