The questions DStv must answer
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa recently launched its investigation into South Africa’s subscription television broadcasting market.
The investigation is meant to address concerns raised by stakeholders, and is a way for ICASA to determine why so few subscription TV services have launched in South Africa.
“Despite multiple attempts to introduce competition in the subscription broadcasting market, only two licensees have been able to launch services,” said ICASA.
It was referring to players like TopTV, which applied for business rescue in 2012, was bought by StarTimes, and renamed to StarSat.
“The two entrants have been plagued with sustainability challenges and the others have not yet begun operations.”
As part of its investigation, ICASA has asked stakeholders to complete a questionnaire.
Questionnaire
The questions broadcasters such as DStv operator MultiChoice were asked included:
- What has the impact of OTT services been on your business?
“OTT” stands for “over-the-top”, and refers to services like Netflix, ShowMax, iTunes Movies, and Google Play Movies.
- What are your views on a la carte vs bouquet model in payTV?
ICASA is asking what stakeholders think of being able to choose their own channels, rather than buying fixed packages of channels.
- How have the prices you pay for rights to key content assets changed through time?
MultiChoice said these costs have increased significantly over the years.
The weakness of the rand increased costs even further as much of its content is bought in US dollars.
Other questions included:
- What are your processes for acquiring international content?
- Do you consider the payTV market to be competitive? If not, what are some of the impediments to competition in this market?
- What barriers to entry do you envisage new entrants would encounter when entering your market?
- Please provide your content spend for the past 5 years and content budget for the next 5 years per genre.
- Provide a breakdown of your content in terms of own production, commissioned content, 3rd-party exclusive contracts.
The full questionnaire is available on the ICASA website.
ICASA will also conduct meetings and gather written submissions from stakeholders.
After this, it will publish a discussion document for public comment, followed by a findings document.
ICASA said it expects the discussion document to be published before the end of September 2016.
The entire process is scheduled to be finished before the end of the current financial year, provided stakeholders stick to deadlines.
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