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TopTV porn: From dusk 'til dawn

Cape Town – TopTV has now changed its stance and wants to only broadcast the sex channels within the watershed period.

In a statement, TopTV which is currently arguing its case in its public hearing before the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa), says the about-turn comes "in response to considerable public inputs and feedback".

TopTV, which wants to broadcast porn on South African television, has changed its application submission for three pornographic channels and now wants to show porn only during what the TV industry calls "the watershed period" – between late night and early morning.

'Extra precaution'
 
"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.

Initially TopTV put to Icasa that it would not be "commercially savvy" to only broadcast the channels during the watershed period which falls between 20:00 and 05:00.
 
The struggling On Digital Media (ODM) which runs TopTV, and which is currently under business rescue according to the Companies Act, applied for a second time to broadcast three sex channels as a separate bouquet.
 
This time TopTV wants to broadcast Playboy TV, Desire TV and Private Spice with a rating classification of R18.

The sex channels are provided to TopTV by Playboy TV UK / Benelux Limited in England and are uplinked through SES Platform Services in Munich, Germany to South Africa.

'Not practicable'

In its initial application, TopTV claimed: "It will not be practicable to only schedule some material outside of the watershed period as all material will be of an adult nature. It will also not be viable and commercially savvy to run a channel from 20:00 to 05:00 only, as that will not be suitable and/or appealing to the majority of the audience interested in the channel/content."
 
The South African Film and Publication Board (FPB) told Channel24 that "we believe this type of distribution [through television] has the potential to expose children prematurely to adult content.

"With pornographic content as such, people have the right to view such content, but it can only be distributed by licensed distributors at specific businesses and the law still applies in that regard."

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