Back to earth for SABC Africa?
The SABC Africa channel is counting on digital terrestrial television (DTT) to broadcast to the nation after it canned its association with pay-TV operator MultiChoice Next month, SABC Africa will no longer be available on DStv after the two broadcasters ended their relationship.
The move came as no surprise because SABC channels are not popular on DStv. They “are no drivers for pay-TV uptake”, MultiChoice CEO Nolo Letele told the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) during the regulator’s hearings last year.
SABC 1, 2 and 3 accounted for less than three hours of the 22hr 52min the average viewer spent a week watching DStv last year. The SABC channels also fall outside the top 10 most watched channels on the pay-TV platform.
SABC Africa offers a combination of news, current affairs and entertainment — mainly soap opera reruns and children’s programmes.
Talks between the SABC and MultiChoice collapsed when they failed to agree on a new SABC Africa contract after the original one expired earlier this year.
SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago declined to comment on the failed talks, saying: “I’m not in a position to give you all the details, except to say that we wanted to renew with them and had been in negotiation, but there were a lot of issues we couldn’t agree on.”
Of the four SABC channels available on DStv, SABC Africa is the only income generator as it was commissioned by MultiChoice.
However, the revenue generated has to be weighed against broadcasting operational costs.
MultiChoice airs the other three channels as part of its compliance with the Electronic Communications Act, which stipulates that subscription broadcast licenses must carry public service channels to fulfil their mandate of universal coverage.
Though SABC Africa is available on Sentech’s Vivid digital satellite platform, viewership figures are not known. But Vivid, restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, is believed to be problematic, while MultiChoice operates in most African countries and has more than 2m subscribers.
Kganyago insists all is not lost and says SABC expects to switch to DTT in November, which will enable it to broadcast SABC Africa as an additional channel.
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