South Africa’s ICASA regulator has fined On Digital Media (trading now as StarSat, and earlier as TopTV) with a Rand 25,000 (about $2100) penalty for showing ‘adult’ content without permission.

The fine has to be paid by the end of June.

The ruling came about following a complaint by the Justice Alliance of South Africa, a consumer group, which has closely monitored – and complained – about ODM/StarSat’s backing of adult channels.

The transmissions took place without approval in December 2014 and January this year. The regulator held off from imposing its fine because of similar legal actions that were running concurrently.

The matter finally came in front of an ICASA tribunal on April 14th, and where ODM accepted that it breached its licence. A larger fine was considered (of R60,000) but the tribunal accepted that with fewer than 300 subscribers viewing ODM’s adult channels the lower sum could be levied.

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Categories: Articles, Policy, Regulation