Egypt's Supreme Council for Media Regulation decided on Sunday evening to suspend broadcast of hugely popular television programme Saturday Night Live (SNL) Arabia from Egypt's ON Entertainment channel over "sexual suggestions and phrases."

"The decision comes based on investigations conducted by the complaints committee, followed by reports by the monitoring committee which confirmed that the programme has consistently used sexual phrases and insinuations that cannot be presented to viewers and violates ethical and professional criteria," the statement said.

According to the statement, the regulatory body sent a cease-and-desist letter to the head of the Egyptian Media Company, which owns the private satellite ON channels, previously named ONTV.

ON Entertainment has been broadcasting older episodes of the show, which airs on the Dubai-based Orbit Showtime Network (OSN).

Airing of SNL Arabia began in 2016, with the fourth season concluding on Saturday night. The creators of the show could not be reached for comment.

SNL Arabia is a franchise of US late-night comedy sketch show SNL, which is well known for satire sketches and parodies starring special appearences by renowned TV and movie celebrities.