On Wednesday evening in the daily E! News it went to beyond ridiculous when Universal Networks International (UNI) which runs E! Entertainment in Africa on DStv from the United Kingdom, blurred out the word "SLUTTIEST" during a news broadcast.
Yet "SLUTTIEST" could still clearly be seen in the reflection on the anchor desk.
The badly-done hack-job censorship of E! Entertainment is ongoing and debilitating for viewers who are forced to watch a TV channel on DStv looking and sounding like a jumping record.
It makes viewers tune out, and away, from E! Entertainment who are fed up with the interference and lobotimising from Universal Networks International which keeps providing South African and African viewers a version of E! that they deem fit.
MultiChoice needs to not only tell DStv viewers whether the pay-TV platform endorses censorship, but whether it finds that this intrusive cutting, bleeping and blurring is acceptable as a broadcasting quality standard for the channel.
Does E! Entertainment rate as good enough technical quality as a TV channel for MultiChoice given all the silences and blurring going on?
If an ordinary person sits and watched E! Entertainment for an hour or an episode of E! News, what would they score it for its level of visual impairment and audio impairment? E! simply doesn't sound nice - like a car constantly driving over rocks creating a never-ending audio bleep-out hiccup ride.
DStv subscribers are cheated with a TV channel from Universal Networks International which is being willy-nilly neutered on a daily basis.
To add insanity to the incessant censorship of E! Entertainment is the mad incongruity with which trash and crass low-class reality shows like The Drama Queen, as well as shows such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Soup, Eric and Jessie and others are filled with unbleeped profanities, cussing and verbal on-screen filth.
This (sometimes shocking language) is not bleeped out.
Yet Universal Networks International censors news and other programming much less harmless and actually informative.
It's idiotic and doesn't make any sense ... at all.
If Universal Networks International and E! Entertainment don't feel that what is on the channel should be shown or said in South Africa, then UNI, E! Entertainment and MultiChoice should rather remove E! Entertainment entirely from the channel line-up.
The censorship is highly disturbing, off-putting, condescending and done badly. Wednesday's example showed yet again exactly how mindlesslessly bad and amateurly E! Entertainment is being botched for viewers.
D tv s bscr bers dese ve more th n a half-cha nel where viewers c nstantly have to try and f gure out what on earth is going, being said or being shown, be ause it is constantly c nsored and blocked, blurred and bl ped out, not giving the full p cture.
