Officials: Show Shows Too Much : Media: Irvine leaders object to cable TV program featuring nude people airing unsolicited.

A nude talk show featuring naked guests and clips of porno movies has begun appearing unsolicited in 195,000 households throughout Orange County each week, stirring protest from some astounded TV viewers.

“It is so grotesque,” said Irvine Councilwoman Paula Werner. “People are going to do what they want to, but my whole issue is that it comes uninvited into our homes.”

The show is carried at midnight Saturday by Cox Communications on Channel 31, where it debuted in March as part of the basic cable service. Cox Communications spokesman Mark Stucky said recent federal court decisions based on First Amendment rights have tied the company’s hands. “Out Late With Ricky D” now has as much right to the public airwaves as any public programming.

At the Irvine City Council this week where council members attacked the show, Werner said she was “absolutely dumbfounded” to discover it was being broadcast to all Irvine homes.

“I have to tell you that the community standards that I know exist in Irvine would not approve of this show.”

In addition to regular features such as “erotic home video,” Werner said, the program runs adult-oriented commercials.

“They don’t leave anything to the imagination,” she said. “I don’t know how they get away with it.”

The show is prohibited from showing genitalia or sexual activity, according to Stucky.

Richard Ditlevsen, a 37-year-old former stuntman who is producer and host of the Sacramento-based show, said he sees himself as a new-generation warrior against censorship.

“Hugh Hefner fell asleep at the wheel,” he said. “It’s time to pass the torch on.”

Besides, he said, “these people know their thumbs aren’t broken. They can change the channel.”

But Werner and Councilman Greg Smith said the show should be available only by request from cable television subscribers.

“I would feel much more comfortable with programming like that being a positive permission item,” Smith said. “It just gives our parents a little bit more control.”

City Manager Paul O. Brady Jr. sent a letter last Friday to Cox Communications expressing opposition to the show and asking the company to place an insert in monthly bills to warn subscribers of the show’s content.

Cox spokesman Stucky said subscribers can request a free “trap” that will block out the channel.

But, he said, recent federal court rulings overturned restrictions on cable television programming established by the Federal Communications Commission in 1984.

“You have to take the 1984 regulations in combination with subsequent court decisions that have stayed FCC rules that would have allowed us to block that programming,” Stucky said.

Ditlevsen said he fought for a year with Cox Communications, formerly Dimension Cable, to lease the time slot. Cox considered the show inappropriate, but their attorneys advised the cable company that it was legally required to carry the programming.

Leased-access programming is considered a kind of public-access television with commercials, according to Stucky. It is leased on a first-come, first-served basis, and Ditlevsen was the first to request a lease for that time period.

Cox serves more than 195,000 subscribers in South County from Irvine to San Juan Capistrano in addition to portions of Orange and Tustin.

But city leaders in those cities say there have been few complaints about the show.

“I haven’t had my phone ringing off the hook from people saying, ‘Get this garbage off the TV,”’ said San Clemente Councilman Steve Apodaca. “This is part of the deregulation that we’ve been screaming for all these years. I think we’re seeing some of the disadvantages.”