Do we need a public broadcaster?

[Syndyre]

All the furore around the SABC blacklisting scandal has made we wonder, do we really need a public broadcaster in the first place? I mean the one we have now is clearly incompetent and like Telkom and the rest of the parastatals seems to just be a drain on taxpayers. But because we're forced to pay for TV licences and subsidise them through taxes they couldn't really care what we think anyway.

So why not open up the markets and grant as many licences as the available frequency spectrum allows (should be quite a few with the move to digital) and let whoever consumers choose survive? I personally resent having to pay for something I don't either watch or support.

 

[xtermin8or]

the only contribution the general public make to the running of the SABC is the TV Licence fees, the rest of their funding comes from advertising, and not Govt so taxes are not used to fund the SABC

 

[LabAnimal]

however paying a tv licence to the sabc when you don't even tune into it is theft.

 

[Syndyre]

the only contribution the general public make to the running of the SABC is the TV Licence fees, the rest of their funding comes from advertising, and not Govt so taxes are not used to fund the SABC

Don't they get some form of subsidy from the main govt budget?

 

[Tassidar]

If the public broadcaster is unable to do its job effectively (as I feel is the case here), then it should be scrapped). Under a totally liberal system you will get free TV (as Xterminator points out most revenue comes from advertising). IMO government should be run as efficiently as possible, and anything that has low efficiency should be scrapped or changed.

Personally I resent having to pay for a TV licence, as I never watch SABC. The only thing I ever use my TV for is videos and DVDs, and it is therefore just another poorly disgiused tax for me to pay to fund a biased and corrupt institution.

 

[Syndyre]

however paying a tv licence to the sabc when you don't even tune into it is theft.

Exactly, and anything mandatory that you're forced to pay is a tax, whatever you choose to call it.

 

[Syndyre]

If the public broadcaster is unable to do its job effectively (as I feel is the case here), then it should be scrapped). Under a totally liberal system you will get free TV (as Xterminator points out most revenue comes from advertising). IMO government should be run as efficiently as possible, and anything that has low efficiency should be scrapped or changed.

Personally I resent having to pay for a TV licence, as I never watch SABC. The only thing I ever use my TV for is videos and DVDs, and it is therefore just another poorly disgiused tax for me to pay to fund a biased and corrupt institution.

Even if you don't get free TV, with services such as DSTV you can choose whether you want to pay for it or not. I've got no problem with pay TV, what irritates me is that you don't get a choice.

 

[xtermin8or]

SABC has a public mandate to provide cheap broadcasting to the public. The majority of people in the country can't afford DSTV, and rely on the SABC for info, news, education and entertainment through the SABC's TV and Radio services, there is definitely a need for a public broadcaster, if only for these people

There are twelve radio stations in the SABC stable, I am sure that even though some 'claim' to never watch TV they surely listen to the radio

 

[Tassidar]

Agreed. One could also argue that SABC is not free since you need the TV license. It may be cheaper in the future from an operational cost (as opposed to capital cost) perspective to get a computer projector (AFAIK you don't need a TV license for these) and plug it into a pay tv decoder than to get an SABC license and watch TV.

 

[Syndyre]

SABC has a public mandate to provide cheap broadcasting to the public. The majority of people in the country can't afford DSTV, and rely on the SABC for info, news, education and entertainment through the SABC's TV and Radio services, there is definitely a need for a public broadcaster, if only for these people

There are twelve radio stations in the SABC stable, I am sure that even though some 'claim' to never watch TV they surely listen to the radio

ETV is free to air and provides similar services though. Sure most people can't afford DSTV but let SABC then provide a similar service at a much cheaper price. i.e. if you WANT to watch SABC then you can pay them a fee of R200/year or whatever. For the rest of us that don't, don't force us to pay for something we don't support.

 

[Syndyre]

Agreed. One could also argue that SABC is not free since you need the TV license. It may be cheaper in the future from an operational cost (as opposed to capital cost) perspective to get a computer projector (AFAIK you don't need a TV license for these) and plug it into a pay tv decoder than to get an SABC license and watch TV.

Well they're already asking for TV licences to be issued for TV tuner cards so don't give them any ideas!

 

[chiskop]

SABC has a public mandate to provide cheap broadcasting to the public. The majority of people in the country can't afford DSTV, and rely on the SABC for info, news, education and entertainment through the SABC's TV and Radio services, there is definitely a need for a public broadcaster, if only for these people

There are twelve radio stations in the SABC stable, I am sure that even though some 'claim' to never watch TV they surely listen to the radio

Exactly.

Do we need a public broadcaster? It depends on who "we" are. Does South Africa need a public broadcaster - yes. Do we, as myAdsl'ers, need a public broadcaster? Probably not so much. we have other options.

And no, etv doesn't do the same thing as SABC. Unless you consider wrestling to be an important facet of the public broadcasting mandate.

 

[xtermin8or]

The SABC has to reapply for it's licence every so many years, it works like the Post Office, the licence for the public broadcaster is open to anyone who can fulfill the mandate or prove they can - no-one AFAIK has ever applied for these licences besides the Post Office and the SABC, as it is far too expensive

The SABC has only recently for the first time showed profit at the end of the financial year - It is extremely expensive to run the SABC, and to fulfill their public mandate, therefore it is not possible to reduce licence fees

 

[Syndyre]

Exactly.

Do we need a public broadcaster? It depends on who "we" are. Does South Africa need a public broadcaster - yes. Do we, as myAdsl'ers, need a public broadcaster? Probably not so much. we have other options.

And no, etv doesn't do the same thing as SABC. Unless you consider wrestling to be an important facet of the public broadcasting mandate.

So are soaps an important facet of the public broadcasting mandate? Or news masquerading as propaganda?

 

[Tassidar]

Exactly.

Do we need a public broadcaster? It depends on who "we" are. Does South Africa need a public broadcaster - yes. Do we, as myAdsl'ers, need a public broadcaster? Probably not so much. we have other options.

But why have a public broadcaster that is supposedly free, but that we have to pay for? The point of my argument was to illustrate the fact that it could be cheaper to not have a public broadcaster for most of the population in SA (if one didn't then have to pay license fees).

Why then does SA need a public broadcaster? Ultimately, the answer then can only be: For the state to have some influence in what is broadcast to the majority of South African's. This seems to me to be a charateristic of the previous regime. Surely our new democracy wouldn't want to model itself on apartheid?

 

[Syndyre]

The SABC has to reapply for it's licence every so many years, it works like the Post Office, the licence for the public broadcaster is open to anyone who can fulfill the mandate or prove they can - no-one AFAIK has ever applied for these licences besides the Post Office and the SABC, as it is far too expensive

The SABC has only recently for the first time showed profit at the end of the financial year - It is extremely expensive to run the SABC, and to fulfill their public mandate, therefore it is not possible to reduce licence fees

The point isn't who should fulfill the role, the point is should the role exist in the first place. And the fact that it's expensive proves nothing. It could just as easily be expensive because its mismanaged.

 

[chiskop]

It is expensive becuase there are certain conditions that the public broadcaster has to meet, that are not imposed on other broadcasters, such has constraints on the amount of foreignly-produced content, and having to broadcast in all eleven languages.

I'm not saying that the SABC is mismanaged - just that public broadcasting is both neccessary and inherantly expensive.

 

[Syndyre]

And on what basis do you say it is necessary? And why do you think we should be forced to pay for it?

 

[chiskop]

It is neccessary so that all South Africans can listen/watch the news* and receive information in their own language (provided, of course that it is a South African language).

This may not be important to you because you have other options, being English/Afrikaans, and (presumably) in a position to pay for your options. Most South Africans do not have the choices that you do.

Why should we pay for it? Why should we pay any kind of tax? And I really can't answer that, other than to argue that public broadcasting is a public good, and that to me it is worth paying R200 pa to have access to, and for other South Africans to have access to, publicly broadcasted tv and radio.

________
* The quality of the publically broadcasted news is another debate, and the subjectivity that we are um, subjected to from the public broadcaster is certainly not neccessary. News is difficult. etv does it just about as poorly as the SABC, and MNet/DSTV hardly even tries.

 

[Syndyre]

________
* The quality of the publically broadcasted news is another debate, and the subjectivity that we are um, subjected to from the public broadcaster is certainly not neccessary. News is difficult. etv does it just about as poorly as the SABC, and MNet/DSTV hardly even tries.

I think if we had a public broadcaster like the BBC we probably wouldn't be having this debate. The problem is that because they have a captive market they can be as useless as they like. MNET isn't allowed to broadcast news as part of its licence, or at least it wasn't at inception, not sure its changed since then and DSTV provide BBC, Sky, CNN etc, which IMO are far superior to anything SABC or ETV offer.