DStv’s biggest threat

While international streaming services are increasingly interested in acquiring the rights to show many popular live sports, they aren’t the biggest threat to DStv’s dominance in live sports broadcasting in South Africa.

That is according to seasoned television broadcasting journalist Thinus Ferreira from TV with Thinus, who believes the major danger for DStv lies within the country’s borders — local regulation.

Ferreira argues that the possibility of industry regulator Icasa restricting what types and how much live sport the pay-TV broadcaster is allowed to licence was a more immediate threat.

“The clock is definitely ticking for MultiChoice in terms of losing its stranglehold on sports licencing rights,” Ferreira told MyBroadband.

“The biggest danger is legislation or regulations that might prevent MultiChoice and SuperSport from acquiring certain content.

“The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) could place a quota or limit or certain restrictions on what SuperSport might buy.”

DStv parent MultiChoice has much deeper pockets than the SABC, eMedia, and other broadcasters, enabling it to pay for exclusive access to most high-profile rugby, cricket, golf, tennis, or other sporting events.

However, Icasa’s inquiry into DStv’s apparent dominance in the subscription broadcast market in South Africa could threaten that advantage.

Its previous draft findings, published in 2020, included recommendations that would result in the following:

• Unbundling sports rights
• Splitting content rights with more than one broadcaster
• Limiting the number of Hollywood studios a broadcaster may have exclusive agreements with
• Decoder interoperability with multiple satellite services

It also compiled a list of major sporting events which would have to be broadcast on free-to-air TV channels “live, delayed-live, or delayed”.

These included the tournaments in the table below.

MultiChoice took legal action against the inquiry’s proposals in 2019, and major sporting bodies also vowed to fight alongside the pay-TV giant.

However, Icasa announced a reboot of the inquiry to take into account new policy developments and technological and market trends — such as the entry of streaming services like Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video.

Shortly after that, the ANC’s communications subcommittee also compiled a policy document proposing the end of exclusive broadcasting rights on national sports events.

The policy would stop national sporting bodies for the Bafana Bafana, Proteas, and Springboks from selling broadcasting rights on an exclusive basis.

Instead, the SABC must broadcast all these teams’ games live, which it cannot currently do.

Ferreira said the problem with restricting the sports rights MultiChoice can acquire is that it does not guarantee other platforms will broadcast it.

“E-tv might not be willing to pay for it, or the SABC that continues to be loss-making might not be able to buy it anyway,” Ferreira stated.

If the regulations were enacted, it could mean that some prominent sporting events might not be aired by any South African broadcaster.

Why streaming services will take years to compete

When it comes to streaming services, Ferreira explained that the decision to sell sports rights to a particular broadcaster or streaming provider involved two factors — money and viewership.

Although many of the international players have much more capital to spend on rights, they don’t necessarily have sufficient subscribers in specific regions.

“Money is a very big issue in sports broadcasting rights; it’s a very profitable business,” said Ferreira.

“But the rightsholders also don’t want to sell their content and have very small audiences because that undermines the brand in the viewer’s mind.”

“Streamers are still relatively small, although they are fast-growing, and traditional TV still has the largest audience.”

In South Africa, Ferreira said DStv had a “large enough” audience, which is beneficial to MultiChoice and the companies that sold the rights.

The other problem is that video streaming services still need to enhance and optimise their live-streaming capabilities, whereas broadcasters have already perfected this.

Even streaming giant Netflix recently suffered a major outage while trying to live-stream a special reunion episode of Love is Blind.

Nevertheless, Ferreira believes MultiChoice will eventually lose some sports broadcasting rights, similar to how it lost access to certain Hollywood studios that launched streaming services.

“Some of the sport is going to companies that pay more once these streaming services reach a certain level of scale,” he said.

However, Ferreira estimated this change would only take place in five to 10 years.

Now read: DStv vs international satellite TV operators — South Africa getting a raw deal

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