The Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA) has rapped SABC1 over the knucles for showing a youth sex music video in the morning, without the proper age restriction advisory while SABC1 blames Christmas for the mistake.
Following complaints, the BCCSA found SABC1 guilty of not showing a proper age restriction of "PG10" for a music video depicting teen sex shown at 09:55 on a Saturday morning in January during the show Mzansi Insider.
The SABC conceded that an age advisory of "PG10" should have been shown before the 90 second music video of AKA featuring D.A. Les.
The SABC blames an "absence of its support systems on the day" - Saturday 4 January. SABC1 wasn't fined.
"In a society where teenagers are under severe peer pressure to have sex, drink and take drugs, I find it extremely irresponsible of SABC1 to air a music video like this which blatantly shows teenagers drinking, stealing a car, irresponsibly driving and indirectly having sex on a programme airing just before 10:00 on a Saturday morning when children of all ages could see," wrote a complainant.
"We agree with the complainant regarding the unsuitability for children to the extent that the video should not have been aired without at least a PG10 advisory," SABC1 told the BCCSA.
"This would have allowed parents possibly watching with their younger children to make the choice of whether switching out or using the broadcast to educate their children about the issues," SABC1 told the BCCSA.
"Unfortunately the lack of staff over the Christmas and New Year period when this broadcast took place resulted in this [age restriction advisory] not being done," said SABC1.
"We have instituted proper internal disciplinary steps and other measures to ensure that there is no recurrence of a lack of such advisories".
"We have also decided that we will not show similar material at such time unless it is justified within the context of addressing the target audience of the programme," said SABC1.
