CHCH television’s signal went dark this morning shortly after the regular news broadcast was overtaken by a porn movie.

Viewers of the News Now broadcast were confronted with hard-core sex scenes at 9:30 a.m. for about three minutes before the channel stopped broadcasting.

CHCH apologized for what it said was a problem that originated outside of CHCH and outside its owners, Channel Zero.

Reaction to the event was immediate on Twitter.

“Someone hacked CHCH news to play gay porn . . . And every TV in the gym and starbucks was set to it...”

“Watching #chch news when channel cut out and turned into male gay porn.”

CH news director Mike Katryzc told The Spectator “inappropriate content was broadcast and we are investigating.”

“It appears the problem originated at a cable company outside of CH and outside Channel Zero.”

“It involved missed signals but did not originate here or at Channel Zero.”

Katryzc said CH apologized to viewers when it returned to air after about three minutes.

“We are very, very concerned about this and apologized. We have assured people it did not originate here.”

“It is a terrible thing that it went to air and we are not pleased with it but we are investigating.”

CHCH is owned by Channel Zero, which operates several adult-movie services.

A similar situation occurred at TV station in Colorado recently.

According to the New York Daily News, Comcast viewers in Colorado Springs and Peublo, Colo. ended up getting an eyeful last Thursday morning when hard-core porn played in place of the regularly scheduled program, Good Morning America.

The footage was shown only for a few seconds before it was replaced with religious programming, but it reportedly took nearly three hours to solve the problem.

Comcast later issued a statement. “The issue was a result of human error, which has been resolved, and preventative measures have been taken to avoid this from happening again in the future,” Comcast spokeswoman Cindy Parsons said.

With files from Star Staff

ALSO FROM THE STAR

Toronto gunman robs 5 women in 90 minutes

How 420 came to be marijuana day (the real story)