Justin Pearce
Kathy Berman, producer of NNTV’s youth magazine programme The Works, is to conduct her own defence when the SABC appears before the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) today.
The SABC has been summoned before the BCC in connection with an insert entitled Sex and Romance in the Nineties which was broadcast as part of The Works on May 17.
While broadcasters who appear before the BCC may have the benefit of legal advisors when necessary, Berman said SABC lawyers had declined to defend the programme. She had therefore decided to put the case on her own.
The contentious images occur in a section on safe sex, and involve a very brief demonstration of how to use a condom — which the BCC says provoked a public
Berman warned against letting prudery get in the way of explicit safe sex education: “By the year 2000, 20 percent of people in this country will be HIV positive,” she said. “We can’t shy away from things like this.”
If the BCC rules that the programme was unacceptable, the SABC may face a fine of up to R30 000 — or the very least, be instructed to make sure such material is not broadcast again.