Australia- The Australian Communications and Media Authority [ACMA] has found the multicultural broadcaster breached its codes of practice by showing the British documentary Obscene Machines in April last year.

The documentary focused on how technology is used to spice up sex lives, including items such as robotic sex machines and vaguely life-like dolls.

ACMA noted two segments that breached broadcasting rules and were unsuitable for screening in the MA15+ category.

One two-and-a-half-minute segment featured close-up shots of a naked woman apparently being penetrated by a mechanical dildo; the other focused on an elderly man’s use of a life-like sex doll called Emma, modelled on his 18-year-old ex-wife.

ACMA rejected SBS’s argument that a large proportion of the program dealt with the sexual activities of the old and disabled and was informational.

“ACMA considers that the treatment of the subject matter in Obscene Machines is adult in nature and is therefore unsuitable for ordinary 15-year-old audience members,” it said in its report.

“The nature and frequency of nudity and sexual references in Obscene Machines had a cumulative intensity greater than strong … ACMA considered that one segment in particular contained depictions of sexual activity with a level of detail and degree of explicitness that exceeded the MA15+ requirement that sexual activity be implied.”