Following a complaint that the 18h30 SABC3 TV English news bulletin did not include excerpts of that day’s reply by the leader of the Parliamentary Opposition in regard to the State of the Nation address of the President, the Tribunal held as follows:  The SABC decides on the contents of its own news bulletins. That accords [...]

A complaint was received regarding a viewer competition that offered a prize to viewers who sent an SMS to a certain number. Later on during the programme, it emerged, however, that only clients of a certain bank, i.e. Nedbank, stood a chance of winning the prize. The Complainant is not a client of Nedbank.  The [...]

Clause 11(9) of the Broadcasting Code for Free-to-Air Broadcasters provides as follows:       (9)        Broadcasting service licensees must not include explicit or graphic language     related to news of destruction, accidents or sexual violence which could disturb      children or sensitive audiences, except where it is in the public interest to include such [...]

Broadcast of Top Gear programme on SABC3, in which the Top Gear team arrived at the Sea of Galilee and made light-hearted references to certain sayings of Jesus Christ. The Tribunal held that, although the references were likely to have been offensive to many Christian viewers, the standard of “advocacy of hatred based on religion [...]

A complaint was received concerning a film broadcast during the early afternoon with a 10PG. The Tribunal held that the classification “Parental Guidance” means that parents are advised to be present while their children under ten watch a film. Although there is no nudity in the scenes complained about, there are compromising scenes of sexual [...]

The complaint was that the one-sided view broadcast by the SABC, wherein the policy of Israel vis-à-vis the Palestinians was equated with apartheid, amounted to a contravention of the Broadcasting Code. The Tribunal held as follows: No reasonable viewer of the news was likely to have understood the item as attempting to reflect balance. In [...]

A complaint was received from the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in South Africa ( “the Church”) that its reputation had been impaired owing to the use of visual inserts in the regular SABC3 discussion and investigation programme, Special Assignment. The purpose of the programme was to report on churches and clergy who [...]

A complaint was lodged by the Complainant Church that it had unjustifiably been implicated in accusations of crimes. The matter was settled and the complainant was granted an opportunity to rectify the matter on air. CLICK TO VIEW FULL JUDGMENT 

The Complainant argued that the use of the term “Islamist militants” in a news item is unacceptable and cannot in any circumstances be justified. Islam itself is a non-violent religion, and it is not only offensive but also incorrect to use the phrase, where the two terms are used as if they are synonymous. The [...]

News item stating that the Films and Publications Board had urged listeners to delete copies of a painting which had been classified with a 16N. Complaint that the reference to “delete” was not correct and that the painting was not, according to the Board, to be deleted. However, this is what the CEO of the [...]