Time Warner Cable has issued an apology to thousands of viewers in North Carolina after a 'technical' glitch caused the Playboy Channel to be screened on two children's television channels.

'We're very, very sorry it happened - we know parents are concerned,' a spokesman told local news station WRAL. 'It was a technical malfunction that caused the wrong previews to be shown on our kids' on-demand channels. Unfortunately it hit at the worst possible time on the worst possible channels.'

The mix-up occurred Tuesday morning from 6-8 a.m., when the screens of Kids on Demand and Kids Preschool on Demand showed a menu of children's programming along with explicit streaming preview footage of nude women.