The tragedy that befell America last week has prompted TV and theatre owners around the world to pull potentially offensive or sensitive material from their schedules.

A good example of the extent to which schedules have had to be altered out of sensitivity to events is found at the UK's Sky Television. Its film division - Sky Movies - has pulled over 30 movies due to air in the next week because they contained images which may have offended in light of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The list of films dropped by Sky for the week ranges from obvious contenders such as action films Enemy Of The State, Three Kings, End Of Days, Lethal Weapon, Pushing Tin and Demolition Man, to more surprising fare that could easily have slipped through the net were it not for attentive and systematic checking.

Austin Powers II, for example, was held back from transmission because it contains a clip from the movie Independence Day showing the White House being destroyed. Home Alone II was postponed because it has scenes of Macaulay Caulkin running around the World Trade Center. Although it is a kids film, One Last Flight's title was deemed inappropriate for broadcast. The original version of Spiderman was also dropped, because it contains a scene of Lois Lane's character falling from a skyscraper.

Sky Movies general manager Paul Taylor says he based his decisions on what to withhold on the principle "that if I was a New York American, and I was watching Sky's movie channels and I had a relative or friend involved, would I be upset by the film".

Sky has a computer programme that allows it to hunt for films that may be inappropriate in the event of disasters. "Within minutes of seeing the disaster happen, we were able to run what is called a word search on the commuter system," says Taylor. "If you enter a word like terrorist attack, disaster, bomb, then it brings up a list of every single movie that refers to that."

The screening system is activated every time there is a tragedy of significant proportions. Normally it happens in the event of plane crashes. When the Russian submarine Kirsk sank last year, Sky pulled The Hunt For Red October from its schedule.

But last week's tragedy is on an altogether different level. "Given the scale of the disaster and the fact that a lot of the movies that we show contain a lot of American content, this is going to be in place a lot longer than normal," says Taylor. Most films have been postponed for a minimum of a week, and Taylor says he will review the situation on Tuesday.

"There were literally hundreds of things we had to consider as to whether or not it would be tasteful to broadcast it. We were surprised at the number of movies that contain references to either New York, or disaster or terrorist attack."