No exclusive Porn only Channel for Multichoice DSTV

(Media Study South Africa)

Article by Marc Aupiais

After much public anger was raised, when Multi-choice decided to do a survey on whether or not the public would want an exclusive pornography adult channel on DSTV, DSTV has decided at present not to launch an adult channel. They said that some viewers wanted an exclusive porn channel and others were against the idea, and that the survey was a routine survey, and in response to the possibility that their recently legalized competition may decide to launch a porn channel.

This does not mean that DSTV viewers cannot access adult content, via their DSTV system. Terrestrial broadcaster ETV has quite publicly screened content that certainly is adult content, and which has been called porn, both by viewers of the content and by others. ETV is available on DSTV to South African viewers. Multi-choice DSTV itself screens what is seen by viewers and others as adult content, on Action X, and certainly plays its fair share of explicit movies.

What has also not made the headlines, is a possible problem with DSTV's age restriction system. DSTV has a parental locking system, which allows parents to prevent children from watching anything beyond a certain age restriction without a code. Euronews, which shows partial, veiled, and full nudity, is restricted All Ages on DSTV. Discovery HD Showcase, and likely Discovery itself, also seems to possibly have a similar problem, with sexually explicit language (the Test Drive host talks about performing acts with motor-vehicles, in at least one show viewed.) At least an Age restriction 13 may be more appropriate in these cases.

Only recently has a competitor to DSTV been allowed to operate, it is unclear to myself whether or not this competitor's system has launched their own satellite product as yet.

Pornography has been linked to violence against women, and has been cited as a reason marriages break up.