Thursday, January 15, 2015

StarSat decides to take its hardcore porn case to the Supreme Court; refuses to reapply through regulator Icasa to shown sex channels.


StarSat has decided to take its case to broadcast hardcore pornography on television in South Africa to the Supreme Court after the Western Cape High Court at the end of last year ruled that On Digital Media and StarTimes Media SA has to stop broadcasting the channels.

After the judgment ODM also lost its porn appeal bid with cost.

The Woodmead based satellite pay-TV provider, currently still in business rescue and running the StarSat - previously TopTV - brand, has now quietly restarted broadcasting its hardcore pornography TV channels which it first started broadcasting in November 2013 at R159 per month.

According to court documents ODM and StarTimes Media SA had around 400 subscribers for the sex channels.

At the end of 2014 Judge Lee Bozalek in the Western Cape High Court ordered StarSat to stop broadcasting its hardcore pornography TV channels in South Africa after the the non-profit organisations Justice Alliance of South Africa (Jasa), Cause for Justice and Doctors for Life took Icasa and StarSat to court for allowing and broadcasting pornography on television in South Africa.

Icasa admitted to court that the regulator had failed to appoint experts to consider StarSat's porn plan.

ODM also failed to register with the Film and Publications Board (FPB) as a porn purveyor.

The Western Cape High Court ordered South African's broadcasting regulator, the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to relook the process and decision which gave ODM permission to broadcast the hardcore pornography in the form of Brazzers, Desire TV and Playboy TV channels.

ODM doesn't want to reapply at Icasa following the flawed application process and is now heading to the Supreme Court.