TopTV is standing by its decision to host a series of porn channels despite a court decision to prevent it from launching the three channels until the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa decides on the matter at the end of this month. The network believes it is the right of adults to make the decision themselves.
Marius Liebenberg, senior vice president of sales and marketing at TopTV, says the network is yet to see the court decision, study it and assimilate its implications. In the meantime, Liebenberg says it is the “right of all adults to view content of their choice in the privacy of their homes”.
“It’s a personal choice that adults are entitled to make. Such material is already freely available in the market on mobile telephones, the internet and at specialist outlets. TopTV is satisfied it has more than sufficient mechanisms in place to protect those who are either too young to be exposed to adult television content, or those who take exception to such content. However, TopTV does not apologize for giving those who do wish to view adult content on television access (albeit careful and considered access) to such content,” Liebenberg said in a statement.
He said the matter had “stimulated debate afresh on adult content, its accessibility, the sexual lifestyle choices of people and the very strong reactions – both positive and negative – that the imminent launch of the adult pack of channels in South Africa has provoked”.
In a statement issued to media late yesterday, Liebenberg said he was “not surprised that people opposed to the introduction of adult content on TopTV have been most vocal”. But, he says, those opposed to the porn channels “appear to be in the minority as the vast majority of people who have responded publicly and on social media networks either say that they look forward to the introduction of the adult content, or that it is the entrenched democratic right of people to consume content of their choice in the privacy of their own homes – as long as they do not break the law by doing so”.
TopTV said it had commissioned independent research during its investigation of the business viability of the new channels. It claims 71 percent of urban adult South Africans agreed that people had the right to view material of their choice – including adult content – in the privacy of their homes.
The network has the support of Dr Marlene Wasserman, sexual rights committee member at the World Association of Sexual Health and clinical sexologist. It quotes Wasserman as saying strong fears about sexuality continue to be fueled in South Africa. In this context, she says, TopTV’s initiative to create the Adult Pack of channels is a bold move.
“Solid and comprehensive sexuality education for both parents and children is absent,” she says, adding that there are “scant models for children around healthy relationships and sexuality. Poverty, unemployment, inadequate healthcare and poor education lead to sexual violence. Adult content does not.”
Liebenberg says the Adult Pack of channels would be carefully managed. “The content would only be made available as a completely distinct and stand-alone package and would not be integrated into the mainstream TopTV bouquet of programmes and content. Current TopTV subscribers would only have access to the Adult Pack channels if they subscribed to them and paid a distinct subscription fee for them,” he says.
TopTV says there is a “significant volume of scientific research on the impact of freely available adult content in societies and communities. This research concurs that this material is not only harmless, but that it also reduces incidence of sex crimes in communities and in countries where people have free, non-stigmatised access to it”.
It cites research by Berl Kutchinsky, professor of criminology at the University of Copenhagen, who found that incidence of rape diminished or stayed relatively level as pornography became more freely accessible in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and the USA. The Scientist magazine has published research showing identical findings were recorded in Japan, Croatia, China, Poland, Finland and the Czech Republic. In the USA, there has been a consistent decline in rape over the last two decades as adult content became more readily accessible, The Scientist magazine says.