BARRIE -- TV viewers who settled down to watch a classic movie yesterday afternoon might have been shocked off of their couches when hard-core porn suddenly flashed across their sets.

The short blast of uninvited porn -- including an anal sex act -- was in the middle of a commercial that aired during a movie on Rogers' AMC channel twice between 3:30 and 4 p.m.

"I was shocked," said Robert Meredith, 47, of Barrie, who said the porn aired for more than a minute while he was watching Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford.

"It was disgusting. I was really upset."

He shut the set off, but not before his adult daughters had a quick glance of the screen.

He called Rogers to complain but got "the run-around" after being transferred several times, he said.

"They finally told me to file a written complaint," said Meredith, "but that's not good enough. As a consumer I don't want to pay for that sort of thing. And I want a guarantee that it's not going to happen again."

Director of communications for Rogers Cable Nancy Cottenden said there were a "handful" of complaints.

"They came in very fast and we acted very fast to get it off," she said. The porn was aired because of a corrupted file that was inexplicably embedded in a commercial for television show 30 Rock, Cottenden said.

"It was a nine-second clip. We are investigating, but we may never know how it happened or who did it," she said.

The brief glimpse of porn would have flashed on the AMC channel across the GTA and Barrie area, Cottenden said.

She added she has never experienced anything like it in the 17 years she has worked for Rogers.