The M-Net channel Mzansi Magic and the production company Connect TV are apologising for broadcasting the shocking Sunday episode of Our Perfect Wedding featuring a groom who confessed how he targeted children for sex, saying the content “was clearly offensive and wrong”.
A massive viewer furore followede the
broadcast of the shocking Our Perfect Wedding episode on Mzansi Magic
(DStv 161) on Sunday, leading to Absa abruptly pulling out as sponsor of the
show as well as complaints to and an investigation by the Broadcasting
Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA).
Viewers slammed the show as "a disgusting
shame" and romanticising "rape culture as entertainment".
Mzansi Magic has now said it is
pulling all repeats of the specific Our Perfect Wedding episode that’s also
made available on MultiChoice's DStv Catch Up video-on-demand service and
pushed to subscriber’s decoders.
Our Perfect Wedding showed "Fanie" telling viewers how he sexed school children as a 28-year old taxi driver and how his now wife had to compete for his attention.
Our Perfect Wedding on its official Facebook said bride Bavelile – as if she was in a reality show – “has outwitted, outplayed and outlasted all the women vying for Fanie's affections".
"Mzansi Magic and its production company,
Connect TV, wish to apologise for airing the episode of Our Perfect Wedding
that was broadcast on 29 November," the pay-TV M-Net that supplies channels
like Mzansi Magic to MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform, in a
statement on Tuesday afternoon.
"While we strive to produce quality,
compelling content for our viewers, we realise more should have been done in
the production and airing of this particular episode as its subject matter is
clearly offensive and wrong".
"While the airing of our programmes does not
mean we condome the behaviour included in them, we are reviewing our processes
to ensure that this type of content is not a part of our programming schedule
in the future".
