Why the gay-focused channel OUTtv on DStv will only be made available in South Africa and not the rest of Africa; while MultiChoice says age restrictions will be show specific.

The gay-focused OUTtv channel will only be available in South Africa and nowhere else in Africa where organised opposition and resistance to the broadcast of "pro-gay" television content the past few years have landed Naspers' MultiChoice pay-TV arm and channel distributors in hot water with the rest of the continent's censorship board and regulators.

MultiChoice told TVwithThinus in response to a media enquiry asking why OUTtv will only be available to DStv Premium and DStv Compact Plus in South Africa specifically, that MultiChoice only cleared the content rights of the gay programming for this specific market.  

OUTtv will run from 4 October to 4 November in South Africa as a month-long pop-up channel on channel 198 on DStv with content deemed too risque for the rest of Africa's conservative audiences, especially Nigeria and Kenya as the continent's second and third largest pay-TV markets after South Africa.

OUTtv will broadcast programming ranging from movies, drama, lifestyle, comedy, reality, music and travel shows that appeal to the LGBTQI+ community.

Titles on OUTtv will range from RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Big Freedia Queen of Bounce, Australian series like Deep Water and Wentworth, Degrassi: Next Generation and Hey Qween!, as well as OUTtv original series Knock Knock Ghost, Sex & Violence, Shadowlands, The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula and Don’t Quit Your Gay Job.

MultiChoice was asked whether OUTtv will come with a general age restriction, like for instance 13PG, but the pay-TV operator says OUTtv is structured and programmed as a lifestyle channel and that the channel's gay content won't carry any overall age blocking in South Africa.

"There will be no channel age restriction. Any age restrictions will be programme specific," on OUTtv says MultiChoice.

In June 2017 Kenya's Film Classification Board (KFCB) banned 7 kids cartoon for bogus reasons like saying one character "has a dick for a head", and that two characters who went on an (unseen) "implied romantic vacation", ordering MultiChoice Africa to remove Loud House, The Legend of Korra, Hey Arnold, Clarence, Steven Universe, Adventure Time and Star vs the Forces of Evil from DStv because of "homosexual themes".

Since the channels - Viacom Africa's Nickelodeon, Disney's Disney XD and Turner Broadcasting's Cartoon Network - have only one channel feed into the continent, it meant that the removal of the shows for the Kenyan market meant its removal for all of Africa.

In November 2017 Kenya banned the Disney Channel show Andi Mack because it featured a gay teenager, keeping it off television for the entire Africa, including South Africa.

In July 2016 Viacom International Media Networks Africa said it is censoring an episode of The Loud House on Nickelodeon and won't be broadcasting it on its channel on DStv in Africa since it featured animated gay dads.

In May 2016 NBCUniversal International Networks was forced to pull the second season of I Am Cait, a reality show about the transgender Caitlyn Jenner – formerly known as Bruce Jenner - from E! Entertainment making it unavailable for the entire Africa and South Africa, after complaints and a DStv TV-ban in Nigeria.

In October 2015 Discovery Networks International was forced to censor and remove the transgendered teen docu-series I Am Jazz from TLC Entertainment from the channel carried on DStv across the entire Africa just before it was to begin broadcast, following censorship in Nigeria.

M-Net (DStv 101) that does have different regionalised channel feeds for South, East and West Africa has been self-censoring its East and West channel feeds for M-Net's more conservative audiences where shows like American Gods has been substituted and not been shown, and with something like the the transsexual model agency reality show, Strut on its version of the VUZU AMP channel outside of South Africa that got replaced with other programming.