The Broadcaster broadcast a film with sex and violence scenes fifteen minutes before the commencement of the subscription broadcaster watershed at 20:00. The Tribunal accepted the apol
ogy of DSTV and that the broadcast as from 19:45 was due to a bona fide scheduling error. The Tribunal was, however, of the view that the mistake was one which should not have been made and that the broadcaster was negligent in having made the mistake. Films with an age restriction of 18 may only be broadcast after the watershed. In fact, this film is not a film which should even have been broadcast as from the eight o’clock watershed. The watershed is not a waterfall, which allows an immediate transition to explicit sex and violence as from 20:00. Unfortunately, the film also contained two rather explicit sex scenes and repetitive explicit violence during the first fifteen minutes before 20:00. The film was also loaded locally. There was a clear transgression of the Subscription Code. The film should not have been broadcast as from 19:45 and in fact should at least have been broadcast as from 21:00.
Although the mistake was attributable to a bona fide scheduling mistake of one employee, the Tribunal decided to impose a fine of R20 000 to demonstrate its conclusion that this was a serious transgression, given the fact that children were likely to have been in the audience at this stage of the evening.