Publications
Partners
Cape Town – The gay-focused OUTtv channel will only be available in South Africa and nowhere else in Africa.
MultiChoice told Channel24 in response to a media enquiry asking why OUTtv will only be available to DStv Premium and DStv Compact Plus in South Africa specifically, that they only cleared the content rights of the gay programming for this specific market.
OUTtv will run from 4 October to 4 November in South Africa as a month-long pop-up channel on DStv 198 with content deemed not fit for the rest of Africa's conservative audiences and homophobic laws, especially Nigeria and Kenya as the continent's second and third largest pay-TV markets after South Africa.
OUTtv will broadcast programming ranging from movies, drama, lifestyle, comedy, reality, music and travel shows that appeal to the LGBTQI+ community.
Titles on OUTtv will range from RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Big Freedia Queen of Bounce, Australian series like Deep Water and Wentworth, Degrassi: Next Generation and Hey Qween!, as well as OUTtv original series Knock Knock Ghost, Sex & Violence, Shadowlands, The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and Don’t Quit Your Gay Job.
OTHER LGBTQI+ SHOWS BANNED:
In June 2017 Kenya's Film Classification Board (KFCB) banned 7 kids cartoon shows for bogus reasons like saying one character "has a penis for a head", and that two characters went on an (unseen) "implied romantic vacation", ordering MultiChoice Africa to remove Loud House, The Legend of Korra, Hey Arnold, Clarence, Steven Universe, Adventure Time and Star vs the Forces of Evil from DStv because of "homosexual themes".
Since the channels – Viacom Africa's Nickelodeon, Disney's Disney XD and Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network – have only one channel feed into the continent, it meant that the removal of the shows in the Kenyan market saw it being removed for all of Africa.
In November 2017 Kenya banned the Disney Channel show Andi Mack because it featured a gay teenager, keeping it off television for the entire Africa, including South Africa.
In July 2016 Viacom International Media Networks Africa said it is censoring an episode of The Loud House on Nickelodeon and won't be broadcasting it on its channel on DStv in Africa since it featured animated gay dads.
In May 2016 NBCUniversal International Networks was forced to pull the second season of I Am Cait, a reality show about Caitlyn Jenner from E! Entertainment making it unavailable for the entire Africa and South Africa, after complaints and a DStv TV-ban in Nigeria.
In October 2015 Discovery Networks International was forced to censor and remove the transgender teen docu-series I Am Jazz from TLC Entertainment from the channel carried on DStv across the entire Africa just before it was to begin broadcast, following censorship in Nigeria.
