Adult chat television channels and programs (also known as babe channels or babeshows) are a format of phone-in live television programming that has developed in Europe since 2002, often having elements similar to webcam modelling and softcore pornography.
Adult chat channels were noted in Screen as "challenges to conventional notions" of television â viewers can make premium-rate phone calls to the channel's presenters, but the calls are not heard on screen during the program. Thus, the channels' format and content is openly influenced by the pursuit of revenue, "pay-to-participate", without the traditional "audience subscription, advertising or sponsorship".
Broadcast live from a studio, the shows usually feature female presenters advertising a phone sex line or chat line, speaking on the phone, promoting extra online content and photos, or responding to viewers' online messages, text messages and photos.
Many adult chat programs have been established in mainland Europe (mainly on Hot Bird) and in the United Kingdom (mainly on Sky) since the beginning of SexySat TV and Babestation in 2002. These programs and channels mainly aim for profits drawn from phone calls, at the expense of production values, which are rarely high. The presenters of the shows are often glamour models, fetish models or porn stars, and have included Cathy Barry and Dani Thompson.
Some eventual channels began as shorter shows on unrelated TV stations; for example, Babestation was initially a 2-hour phone-in on Game Network. Some babe channels broadcast for part of the day, and some for 24 hours a day. A typical night show, when content is more sexually explicit, may run from 9pm or 10pm until 5.30am (in the UK). Many of the same channels also run daytime shows. Adult chat companies have also operated various extra online streams and web shows.
While television usually "address[es] itself to an overhearing audience", babe channels were noted in Screen as "challenges to conventional notions" of television" due to their novel format, which prioritises revenue from phone calls that are seen but unheard in the broadcast. As well as this, Stephanie Marriott identified the channels' promise of a "fully bilateral engagement" with the host as an unusual idea in television. De Montfort University professor of film studies, I.Q. Hunter, names adult chat television as representative of how "commercialised erotic representation" changed radically in the digital age.
The rise of adult chat was linked to that of similar "participation television" programs, quiz, psychic and dating channels in the early 21st century. An independent Ofcom report highlighted the contradiction in the nature of the channels: "'Babe' TV was treated as 'advertising' by non-viewers but among viewers it was felt to provide engaging programming that could be enjoyed without calling in." According to viewers, "All respondents implied that the purpose of watching or calling 'Babe' channels was normally sexual gratification, although the channels were also seen as entertaining or amusing."
Photographer Bronia Stewart spoke of the good relationship between presenters and producers, after a nine-month photography project at Babestation as part of the 2013 art exhibition, FreshFaced + WildEyed. She said she was surprised that the hosts' motivation was less about fame and "more about a working life. So while some of them had 20,000 followers on Twitter, it was about being able to provide for their family and earn good money." Stewart also described babe channels as sympomatic of the media's sexualisation of women, and said many of the presenters have changed their bodies seeking to become "the perceived ideal woman".
Among the presenters working on the channels, Rebecca Emslie talked about the shows' environment: "To be honest I really didn't find it competitive at all. I think every channel I have worked for had their favourites but we all used to get along it wasn't bitchy or anything like that! It was a relaxed, fun environment."
Sports broadcaster and writer Amy Christophers said the channels, where she used to present, contributed to many men's unrealistic expectations about women. Former producer Kathryn Vinclaire said the channels were not as she had expected: "It was a world entirely led by the girls on camera, and they were always in complete control." A former office runner on a babeshow said he wouldn't recommend that job as a way of starting out in TV.
In the UK, Ofcom classes TV programs that encourage viewers to call presenters live on a premium rate telephone number as advertisements. The regulations applicable to advertisements apply to these channels, rather than the rules for editorial content. This restricts what may be said and shown on-air on unencrypted channels more stringently than if the content were a normal program. However, regulation of adult TV channels has not been devolved to the Advertising Standards Authority. Ofcom regulates these channels directly.
Adult chat channels have periodically been fined or punished by regulators. In 2006, ICSTIS fined a variety of daytime chat line service providers for breaches of phone line regulations.
In 2008 in Austria, Eurotic TV parent company Franz Ressl Handels GmbH was criticised by the KOA regulator for broadcasting nudity on its daytime programs.
In 2010, Bang Media were fined ã157,250 by Ofcom for screening "inappropriate explicit material" with "manifest recklessness" in the UK.
In 2013, the UK Babestation switched to a channel license in the Netherlands, which led Ofcom to make a formal complaint to the Dutch regulator.
In the US, Playboy TV started Night Calls, a phone-in show where viewers could 'direct' the presenters (all female porn stars) in sexual acts on the air. However, this was not quite the format established later in Europe, where the focus is more on the phone calls, and profit made from them.
In the UK:
Outside the UK:
Eurotic TV, a channel operating under an Austrian licence on Astra and Hotbird, had been allowed to broadcast large amounts of female nudity, softcore porn and moderate sexual content with female models from 2004 to 2009. Regulations forced the channel to remove nudity from its daytime shows in May 2009. Thereafter the adult program began at 11 pm CET and lasted until 3 am. The channel closed in 2016.
During the daytime, most Sky adult channels broadcast "chat line" or "date line" programs, where viewers can call female presenters, still at the premium rate, but rarely including sexual content or conversation so they cannot be classed as "sex lines". As of 2019, many daytime programs featured extra online camera angles. The presenters are sometimes the same as on nighttime sex lines; some made the 'transition' from daytime to nighttime.
During the 2010s, the 8âÂÂ9 pm hour (before the watershed) featured fewer phone-ins on the adult channels.
Defunct:
Some channels have included (past or present):
On Freeview:
Daytime chat lines:
Defunct adult chat broadcasts: