Publications
Partners
Cape Town – TopTV subscribers watching a sex channel on its proposed separate porn bouquet will have to stop and re-enter their PIN every 30 minutes.
In its application before the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Thursday, TopTV said that viewers watching porn will have to re-enter their PIN after every 30 minutes as a safeguard against a sex channel being left unattended.
"All Playboy channels will be configured with a preset time-out period (eg. 30 minutes) after which the PIN must be re-entered," said TopTV in its presentation.
"This prevents the channel being left unattended for longer than the preset period."
'Genuine public concern'
TopTV has also said that their prepaid subscribers will not be able to gain access to it's bouquet of porn channels, and that it will only be made available to contract subscribers.
The struggling pay-TV operator had initially argued that they would need to broadcast the three proposed porn channel 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the venture to be commercially viable.
But TopTV then changed their minds and said they would only air porn during the watershed hours between 20:00 and 05:00 "in response to considerable public inputs and feedback".
"We acknowledge that there is genuine public concern about the protection of children from viewing adult TV content," said Eddie Mbalo, the acting CEO of TopTV.
"Even though we have strict mechanisms in place to give parents full control over the access to these channels, as an extra precaution we have made the decision not to broadcast adult material outside the watershed period, when children are likely to be awake," said Mbalo.
TopTV is currently arguing its case before Icasa at their head office in Sandton in a public hearing over its "authorisation for channels" to broadcast porn in South Africa.
TopTV wants to offer three porn channels - Playboy TV, Desire TV and Private Spice - as a separate porn bouquet and with a rating classification of R18 which comes with its own PIN system.
In its application before the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Thursday, TopTV said that viewers watching porn will have to re-enter their PIN after every 30 minutes as a safeguard against a sex channel being left unattended.
"All Playboy channels will be configured with a preset time-out period (eg. 30 minutes) after which the PIN must be re-entered," said TopTV in its presentation.
"This prevents the channel being left unattended for longer than the preset period."
'Genuine public concern'
TopTV has also said that their prepaid subscribers will not be able to gain access to it's bouquet of porn channels, and that it will only be made available to contract subscribers.
The struggling pay-TV operator had initially argued that they would need to broadcast the three proposed porn channel 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the venture to be commercially viable.
But TopTV then changed their minds and said they would only air porn during the watershed hours between 20:00 and 05:00 "in response to considerable public inputs and feedback".
"We acknowledge that there is genuine public concern about the protection of children from viewing adult TV content," said Eddie Mbalo, the acting CEO of TopTV.
"Even though we have strict mechanisms in place to give parents full control over the access to these channels, as an extra precaution we have made the decision not to broadcast adult material outside the watershed period, when children are likely to be awake," said Mbalo.
TopTV is currently arguing its case before Icasa at their head office in Sandton in a public hearing over its "authorisation for channels" to broadcast porn in South Africa.
TopTV wants to offer three porn channels - Playboy TV, Desire TV and Private Spice - as a separate porn bouquet and with a rating classification of R18 which comes with its own PIN system.
