PresentTense:There must be few things that make a person feel grubbier than to be caught watching porn. This week, it was reported that Channel 6 had considered, then dropped, the idea of broadcasting "erotica" late on Friday nights. Channel 6 revealed that it would be targeted at a "primarily male audience". Which is a statement only slightly less obvious than the outcome of a plumber calling to fix the shower in a women's prison.
The slot was to be called 18+ Only. Perhaps because they rejected such alternatives as 18+ Lonely. Or 18+ Quite Drunk.
Channel 6 had originally planned a 10-week run of such series as Total Romance and Tropics of Love, but said it would buy more "if it is received well". Such measured language suggested it would wait for the critics' reaction, then the Emmy nominations, before deciding to go any further.
Anyway, some investors and members of the Channel 6 board subsequently objected to the plan. Among the channel's backers are Senator Feargal Quinn and the Barry's Tea family, which includes Fine Gael general election candidate Deirdre Clune. So, like teenagers in a video library, Channel 6 had pawed the DVD box, but chickened out before getting to the counter.
Those of you only dying to know what narrative greatness is contained in Tropic of Lust will now have to wait.
As it happens, the late-night smut tactic has been tried more times than the old pizza delivery man/girls' dorm set-up. Channel 4's early days included the controversy over the red triangle, which hovered in the corner of what the station argued were arty foreign movies, which justified their levels of nudity. Until everyone stopped complaining, and Channel 4 dumped the arty foreign movies in favour of pointless nudity.
Elsewhere in Britain, Channel 5 bolstered its late-night audience with "erotic" series, while London station L!ve TV introduced the world to the previously unnoticed Olympian ideal that was topless darts.
Each brought a flurry of interest, before either the complaints or the programmes went away. But as Channel 6's plan was stymied, so was any chance for outrage. We won't know if it would have kept Liveline hopping. And we won't get to see the inevitable panel discussion on The Late Late Show, in which a buttoned-up family-values type engages in a row with a beefy man in a plumber's uniform, while Pat Kenny tries to avoid making bad puns about viewers "turning on".
The only real fuss was in the print media. One Sunday newspaper managed to get a quote from an advertising agent, who condemned the channel's move as a "cheap and rather nasty" way of getting attention. Happily, the article made sure to include some stills of porn stars diligently carrying out their duties. Purely for illustrative purposes, of course.
Would things have become any more heated had Channel 6 gone ahead and broadcast the programmes? Would anyone have really noticed? Because, in truth, when future generations look back upon our civilisation, they will not pinpoint Channel 6 as a cornerstone of our culture. They will not divide 21st-century Ireland into the periods before and after the emergence of a limited-audience cable station that showed reruns of Sex and the City.
Instead, Channel 6 is just another station among dozens that replay American series. And Tropics of Love would have made it just another to throw on a bit of soft porn for the weekend's post-pub brigade.
Instead, maybe it would have brought a little soft focus on the fact that, if you're going to display a little nudity, then at least late night is the time to do it - that if you're going to air "erotica", then it's important to stick to a place where you have a chance of hitting only that highly desirable market of half-plastered twentysomething lads.
Because any parent out there, especially those of small children, will know that the modern child is growing towards the top shelf at the same rate as the top shelf magazines are working their way down to them. Pretty soon, to get to the latest copy of Bob the Builder magazine ("Meet Bob and his friends!") you'll have to rustle through copies of Nuts ("Meet Roberta and her girlfriends!").
It is increasingly off-putting to find yourself in the queue at Spar and have in your eyeline more flesh than you'd find in an award-winning Turkish bathhouse. Every time you pop in for a pint of milk it's like wandering onto the set of Total Romance.
Ultimately, Channel 6 was only trying to do what many have done before and are doing now - make money from porn. But at least it wasn't broadcasting it between episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants.
