TopTV wants porn all day.
TopTV which is applying for the right to broadcast three sex channels in South Africa on the South African pay-TV operator's platform wants to pump the pornographic material for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and says in its written application that it won't be "commercially savvy" to just run the channels after and before what is known as the "watershed period" in the TV industry - between late night and early morning.
ALSO READ: TopTV now only wants to show porn on its proposed separate bouquet of sex channels during the watershed period; amends its submission.
The struggling On Digital Media (ODM) which runs TopTV, and which is currently under business rescue according to the Companies Act, is having its public hearing for its "application for authorisation for channels" today before South Africa's broadcasting regulator, the Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).
TopTV 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 as a separate bouquet and 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. It's TopTV's second try at a trio of porn channels a year after Icasa denied TopTV's first application. This time TopTV is proposing a double PIN instead of a single PIN for the separate bouquet.
In its written application to Icasa, TopTV says it wants the sex channels to broadcast all day long and not just during what the TV industry refers to as the "watershed period" - the time period after 20:00 and before 05:00 when more mature and riskier visual content and language content can be shown and heard on television.
"We respectfully submit that the watershed period should not be an issue with respect to this channel as the material would remain blocked at all times and be viewable only to those adults who select to use the combination of PINs provided to access said material," says TopTV in its written application.
TopTV says the all the programmes on the porn channels will have "a rating of at least R18". "It will not be practicable to only schedule some material outside of the watershed period as all material will be of an adult nature," says TopTV in its application.
"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. Thus, to ensure that there is no transgression or circumvention of the protection offered by the watershed period, ODM will ensure that all material on the channels remain blocked at all times."
ODM's acting CEO, Eddie Mbalo says the group "sees adult content as a key business driver".
TopTV plans to talk today at its public hearing before the regulator and answer questions, something which TopTV declined to do in its public hearing a year ago, after which Icasa denied its first "authorisation for channels".
The South African Film and Publication Board (FPB) tells me 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."
