On Digital Media (ODM), the company behind a first for broadcasting in SA - pay-TV pornography - has announced the availability of its adult package, Playboy Plus.
Now available for R159 per month, Playboy Plus will initially consist of two channels - Playboy TV and Private Spice - and will be expanded to include more content, including pornography sourced from Africa, next year. Playboy Plus is compiled and supplied by Playboy TV UK/Benelux.
ODM positions Playboy Plus as "an erotic entertainment service featuring beautiful women in exotic locations, shot to the highest production standards".
The content - adult entertainment in the form of scripted dramas - will be broadcast during the watershed period of 8pm to 5am daily. The broadcaster says it is in line with the South African Film and Publications Board's R18 and X rating.
Interim CEO Eddie Mbalo says ODM - SA's only other pay-TV company apart from MultiChoice's DStv - is proud to be the first to deliver an adult offering to South African viewers. The offering is broadcast under the new StarSat brand (formerly TopTV).
"The Playboy Channel is one of the most recognisable and popular adult channels on the market," says Mbalo, adding that the StarSat pornography platform represents a positive development, as it promotes healthy sexuality, particularly between couples.
'Appalling act'
Mbalo says ODM's research reveals there is a growing market for adult content aimed at couples. "This is why we feel the introduction of Playboy Plus to our subscribers will in the long run promote healthy relationships, positive images of sexuality and of women, in particular."
Errol Naidoo, founder and president of the Family Policy Institute (FPI), however, strongly disagrees and has started an online petition to rid SA's airwaves of what he calls a "flood of filth". The petition had 1 033 supporters at the time of publication.
He says StarSat "callously" chose to launch its pornography bouquet in the midst of the country's 16 Days of Activism Against Women and Children Abuse - an "appalling act [that] demonstrates StarSat's attitude to the spiralling rates of sexual crimes against vulnerable women and children".
Presenting a polar opposite opinion to that of Mbalo, Naidoo says research "consistently shows that regular porn consumption leads to addiction and often fuels sexual crimes against women and children".
Naidoo has called for a nationwide boycott of all retailers and entities associated with StarSat, including retail partners that stock and sell the decoders that provide the pornography bouquet.
Standing in solidarity with the FPI's contention, the Justice Alliance of SA (JASA) last month filed court papers against the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) - which granted ODM authorisation to broadcast pornography in April - and the broadcaster.
JASA says the watershed time of 8pm to 5am "flies in the face of common sense", because teenage children usually watch TV after completing their homework around 8pm. The alliance has asked the Western Cape High Court to review ICASA's findings that justified the go-ahead, and to send the matter back to the regulator "to apply the law correctly".
ODM is bound to certain conditions stipulated by ICASA, including that of double PIN technology, in place to prevent unauthorised access by under-aged individuals in particular.
Playboy Plus is a separate package and requires a separate subscription. The channels will only be accessible through the use of double PIN technology, to allow subscribers to control viewing.
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