"The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's French arm is tweaking its offering of a raunchy foreign show that has come under fire.
"In line with its policies and programs to ensure that the Hard series is not seen by children, Radio-Canada has decided to restrict the spread between midnight and 4 am (EST) today," reads a post, written in French, on Radio-Canada's Facebook page.
The state broadcaster said the racy show, produced in France, was purchased because it spoke to young adult audiences and was a hit in places like Germany and Korea.
The partial stand-down comes after a flood of criticism from the prime minister, MPs from all parties, and the heritage minister.
"This programming cannot be defended," Heritage Minister James Moore said after viewing the show, which runs Tou.tv, a web TV video on demand offered by Radio-Canada.
"Having now seen the show in question, it raises serious concerns about some programming decisions being made with taxpayers' dollars by CBC/Radio-Canada," he said.
"Today I contacted the CBC and asked them to review all of their online content to ensure offensive programming such as this is not repeated."
The Prime Minister's Office also issued a statement.
"This content is clearly adult in nature and should not be available to children," a PMO spokesman wrote in an e-mail. "While the government doesn't control CBC's content, we are confused by their decision to purchase sexually explicit content and make it available to children. The CBC's mandate is to deliver quality programming to the regions and rural areas, not this material."
The cost of obtaining Hard is not being disclosed by CBC, which cites the information as private due to competition.
Initially, CBC said Hard was not pornographic, and was rated 16-plus." - Kris Sims, Toronto Sun.