THE Broadcasting Authority yesterday reprimanded TVB Pearl for televising graphic scenes of animals mating and fighting.
It also rebuked the English-language channel and its ATV World counterpart for inaccurate reporting of financial news.
The authority found that both stations had provided incorrect information about the dividend payments of some shares during the morning screening of financial reports last October.
Scenes from The Sex of the Animal Kingdom, screened by TVB Pearl in November, were described by one complainant as ''an animal equivalent of a very low-budget sex film complete with supermarket music in the background''.
Badgers, dogs, lions and tigers were filmed mating and fighting in what Stanley complainant Maggie Looms condemned as ''a sequence of almost pornographic clips'' and ''barbarian torture''.
Authority members concluded that the scenes were ''contrived, stage managed and inhumane''. It found that TVB had breached the television code of practice on programme standards.