What would it take to get you to pay your TV license?

[Tsipa]

I only use my TV as a PC monitor, I can't pay a TV license for it.

 

[Ajtex1]

Fitst of all, I don't watch any of SABC's channels. There are and never were any programmes that I am interested in! and to watch the News on SABC ... it's just all about the ANC and it's corruption, murder etc. crap.

 

[Easter Bunny]

if you buy a tv, you should pay a licence if you're going to use sabc, otherwise, if you're going to hook it to your chromecast/pc and just watch netflix, then perhaps charging you a once off "tv tax" equal to 1 year of sabc licence should be enough.

but then again, sabc is only wasting the little cash they have anyway, so perhaps giving them any form of money is a bad idea.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Its cheap enough, so I pay

What is irritating is to receive a call from someone (I assume the SABC) telling me I am in arrears. I quote my ID number and the licence receipt, to be told that belongs to someone else

Been going on for 5 or 6 years now. A phone call about 4 times a year

In 2015 my wife started getting phone calls. Their first question is if you have a TV in the house. Then they say there is no licence on record. She states it is in my name, recites my ID and they are happy. But in 2019 it went one step further and she was asked to download some form, complete it and return it. She refused

They can really waste everyone's time

They got money to waste, so they spend it wasting your time.

 

[TEXTILE GUY]

I pay mine.

I like Hlaudi Motsoeneng. I wish they would reappoint him. He was entertaining.

Oh yeah, that fruitcake was better than alot of sitcoms on TV

 

[Spizz]

I missed a payment one year, and then discovered that they charge a 10% penalty fee PER MONTH. That was when I stopped paying. At this stage I it is about 2 years that I haven't paid, and they want me to pay almost R1000 (the biggest percentage of this amount is their ridiculous penalty). As long as they try to extort me with 120% penalties a year, they can go fly a kite

I paid the best part of R1000 to them a couple of weeks ago to get up to date. The plan now is to set them up as a beneficiary on the FNB app and make a R28 monthly payment. It won't be missed, should add to eBucks app usage number, and it keeps them out of my hair for good. I should add I have not watched or listened to any SABC content for at least 10 years.

 

[Geoff.D]

Perhaps the biggest problem is that SABC are collecting the fees themselves, if it must continue it should be a separate and neutral organisation.
But this is Safrica...

Which IS how the old system worked!

 

[3WA]

Oh yeah, that fruitcake was better than alot of sitcoms on TV

They should have just cancelled all other programming and given him a GoPro to stream himself 24 hours.

 

[tshepisom@highveldmail]

Those satellite dishes you see in poor communities are for people trying to access live local soccer with money they don't have. Until they give the masses what they want to see (& this includes people from all backgrounds) forget about TV license. Stop selling sport to pay TV bullies and give 24h news free to air , the poor don't have smart TV's and receivers.

 

[Geoff.D]

Fitst of all, I don't watch any of SABC's channels. There are and never were any programmes that I am interested in! and to watch the News on SABC ... it's just all about the ANC and it's corruption, murder etc. crap.

IF you don't watch, how do you know there is nothing that would interest you?
And. if you don't watch, how do you know what the news content is? Are you relying on the BS that you read on myBB to judge?

 

[ThinkCentre]

Everyone with a TV must be forced to pay a licence fee and if not, you are prosecuted or fined!

 

[tshepisom@highveldmail]

Right now SABC should pay us to watch it. They must just remove their channels from TV's so we can buy them as monitors. We don't need it anymore

 

[Arthur]

Like all other taxes, I've paid my "TV licence" since leaving home. It's really just an annual tax on reception devices, to fund the public broadcaster.

The idea isn't a bad one: only tax the devices that can receive/externalise the public broadcaster's signal, rather than fund the broadcaster from the general public purse (where everyone pays including those who don't use the broadcaster, which is even less just). It can be argued that the genesis of the idea was that only users pay. But those days are long gone. Sadly.

I don't believe it's legitimate for Caesar to own a "public broadcaster". Neither do I think it legitimate for Caesar to expropriate (aka "tax") people's labour and property to fund housing, healthcare, education, social services, or Caesar's own businesses like transportation, electricity generation, ports, money production, etc, etc, etc. I execrate these countless invasions of commerce by the State.

But I tolerate them, and obey. And -- unless Caesar's invasions and predations directly and gravely assail a fundamental natural right (big concept that) -- I maar suck it up and obey the Wet van Transvaal.

 

[tshepisom@highveldmail]

i was also f@#k this license..then my tv broke recently...and i couldn't buy one with my tv license in arrears...
/
and we stream and get content from the high seas...do you get tvs without a tuner?

That's the thing you don't find such TVs. They just need to remove their content there so we don't have to pay. SABC has failed South Africans

 

[Geoff.D]

Those satellite dishes you see in poor communities are for people trying to access live local soccer with money they don't have. Until they give the masses what they want to see (& this includes people from all backgrounds) forget about TV license. Stop selling sport to pay TV bullies and give 24h news free to air , the poor don't have smart TV's and receivers.

The SABC is an FTA service! It can still be picked up by a pretty basic analogue TV.
You don't need a "smart TV" to pick up FTA services analogue or digital.
And EVERYONE of those antennas has a low-end satellite decoder connected to it from either DSTV, OVHD, Sentech or a generic FTA decoder. None of these cost more than R600.
The licence fee is a measly R 265 per annum, so the affordability argument you make is non-existent.
And the masses WANT to see programming material in their own languages, do get the local soccer.
The SABC does deliver 24-hour news FTA, in some local languages as well as English. If their finances were more secure, they would see to it that more local languages were used as well.

So now prove the BS you have just posted with some real figures or shut up.

 

[innovator]

I believe Nothing as we don't need a government propaganda machine. What we need is a People's Protection from propaganda machine.
Anyway recently I was forced to purchase a license so that I could purchase a hi Def 50" TV as my desk monitor that I need to do my work. Note I have had it for four months now as my desktop monitor and I haven't even used it to watch Netflix. So congratulations government propaganda machine you managed to extort money from me so that I could do my daily job!

Oh and to add to this I have not watched any SABC broadcasts for over twenty five years now nor do I listen to the radio The internet has been kind to me an I can find all I need for entertainment there! So being forced to pay for a SABC license even if it was to watch Netflix or Amazon prime is a crime against the people! Just saying!

 

[glopher]

The SABC should be able to run as a profitable business with income derived from advertising. There really should be no need for the public to pay for it. This isn't the 80s.

 

[comanche]

Keep in mind that the BBC is a public broadcaster.

Except, it's functional. As Glopher sort of stated, they make most of their money from Broadcasting rights, not subscriptions.

 

[John_Phoenix]

Yo ANCBC want more people to pay their tv license? Make it valuable, by putting educational programs front and center. White people will pay anything for education...

 

[Andrew5000]

All national sport and bring back rugby.
But seriously, if a free-to-air tv station can make money, why not the SABC?
Alternatively, if they could copy the BBC model, it might be attractive to feel compelled to pay the licence.
They should stream online and be the jewel of Africa with all the resources at their disposal.
A good comment was made a couple of years back where the author said that they should move the whole operation out of Auckland Park and into a big empty warehouse. There you will see who actually does work, and who is collecting a paycheck. Get rid of the fat.