TopTV to show banned Nando's TV ad

Cape Town – TopTV announced on Wednesday that will be airing Nando's controversial Diversity TV commercial with its anti-xenophobia message which was banned three weeks ago by self-censoring broadcasters and pay TV operators in South Africa.

TopTV when approached, agreed to show the Nando's TV as from Thursday across multiple TV channels of the South African pay TV operator.

The SABC refused to show the ad after it was booked and although MultiChoice's DStv and M-Net showed it for a few days, MultiChoice’s advertising arm DStv Media Sales canned the ads a few days later, followed by e.tv.

The decision was widely criticised by public society and freedom of expression interest groups. Now On Digital Media (ODM) which runs TopTV has decided that it will be showing the commercial from Thursday.

'Prepared to push the envelope'

TopTV took the decision to be the broadcaster and platform to return the TV advert to the South African airwaves after meetings with Nando's media agency, The MediaShop, to provide a broadcast platform for the advert on television. The advert on YouTube has gone viral the past three weeks with hundreds of thousands of views.

Nando's Diversity TV ad will now be seen on TopTV from Thursday on multiple TopTV channels, including Top One, Top Movies, Top Movies +2, Top Movies +24, Top History, Top explore, Top Crime, Top Gospel and the Afrikaans TV channel ASTV.

"We are a young yet highly competitive player in the pay TV space in South Africa," said Jean Meyer, the vice president for airtime sales of TopTV.

"As such, we are prepared to push the envelope and use our platform to promote freedom of expression and to encourage debate and conversation among our diverse subscriber base."

TopTV's Top One channel also brought the ZA News satirical puppet news show back to South African television last year.

"We applaud Nando's for tackling often thorny, South African issues by giving them a satirical twist," said TopTV.

"The positive message contained in the advert with the line 'real South Africans love diversity' is a sentiment that all South Africans should embrace," said Meyer.

Watch the Nando's Diversity ad here: