Washington News Unknowingly Airs Lengthy Porn Clip During Live Broadcast [Video]

A television station in the state of Washington aired a pornographic clip for several seconds during the weather report of a newscast over the weekend.

Spokane CBS affiliate KREM accidentally showed the backside of a woman behind the right shoulder of meteorologist Michelle Boss for 13 seconds while Boss was giving her first weather update at around 6 p.m. Sunday, Adweek reported.

Neither Boss nor news anchor Cody Proctor reacted to the clip, which was cut to the weather maps, according to the outlet.

"It's a very strange clip — so strange I thought it might have been a hoax when I first saw it. Nobody on screen seems to react, and it takes shockingly long before they cut away," reporter Daniel Walters for The Pacific Northwest Inlander remarked online.

KREM apologized to viewers later that day during the station's 11 p.m. newscast.

"Those of us here at KREM 2 want to apologize for something that happened in our 6 p.m. newscast tonight... An inappropriate video aired in the first part of the show. We are diligently working to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again," the station was quoted as saying.

The Spokane Police Department's Special Victims Unit and Technical Assistance Response Unit has opened an investigation into the incident after it "generated numerous calls from concerned citizens in the city and county," the force said in a statement released Monday.

The police investigation is ongoing and no culpability of any kind has been determined, the statement read.

Meanwhile, KREM personnel are fully cooperating with the investigation to determine what happened, according to police.

The station could face significant fines from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the incident, a report by local newspaper The Spokesman-Review said.

WDBJ, a TV station in Roanoke, Virginia, was issued a $325,000 fine by the agency back in 2015 after the station admitted to accidentally airing a 3-second pornographic clip during its evening newscast on July 12, 2012.

Then-WDBJ President and general manager Jeffrey A. Marks described the FCC fine, which was the highest ever assessed against a single broadcast station for an indecency violation, an "extraordinary burden on protected speech."

Conservative groups, on the other hand, celebrated the FCC's action and said they hoped the fine would bring a new era of tougher enforcement.