“You won’t get to watch the new television advert… for The Fish and Chip Co. on SABC because they have banned it,” said agency MetropolitanRepublic on its website.
The 31-second long clip titled “Dinner time at Nkandla” (the president’s rural homestead) depicts Zuma having fish and chips with his wives and children.
He says at 25 rand ($3, two euros) a plate even the Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan will approve.
CEO of the company Carlo Gonzaga said it was “quite presumptuous that they (SABC) are exercising such a censorship role.”
“We don’t believe it’s offensive, it’s a parody, it’s satirical. We think the ad is in good taste,” he told AFP.
“The message of our ad is if you have lots of mouths to feed and you don’t have a budget, (go for) the Fish and Chips Co.”
The 70-year-old Zuma who has four wives and 21 children, is often a subject of caricature by the South African media.
The advert opens with the sketch of a mansion, supposedly the president’s residency, with a front fountain in the shape of a shower head.
After his rape trial testimony where he said he had showered after sex to prevent HIV infection, cartoonists often throw in a shower head when parodying Zuma.
Early this month the SABC ordered its journalists to stop referring to Zuma’s controversial state-renovated Nkandla rural house as a “homestead” or as “Zumaville.”
His home in Nkandla, a village in rural KwaZulu-Natal, is at the centre of a storm over a security upgrade costing around $28 million.
“We had to find a way to communicate the message of our brand and we chose something that is currently topical, it’s not about violence, it doesn’t express a political view about anything, it doesn’t express a view about Nkandla, it’s not marginalising minorities, … there’s no sex,” said Gonzaga.
An SABC spokesman did not respond to calls for a comment.