Big change coming to TV Licences in South Africa
Cabinet has approved the submission of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Bill of 2023 to parliament, which proposes changes to the broadcaster’s TV Licence scheme.
While it is unclear what the new bill contains as it isn’t yet available to the public, previous proposals suggested scrapping the SABC TV Licence.
“Once passed into law, the Bill will result in the repeal of the current Broadcasting Act, 1999 (Act 4 of 1999),” Cabinet said in a statement following its meeting on Wednesday, 27 September 2023.
“The amendments will strengthen the efficiency of the operations of the public broadcaster.”
This includes reforms to the SABC’s funding model and its TV Licence scheme, which has been failing to generate sufficient revenue for the public broadcaster due to a high proportion of people refusing to pay.
The public broadcaster saw the most significant increase in TV Licence evasion rates since the Covid-19 pandemic during the 2022/23 financial year.
SABC Board chair Khathutselo Ramukumba indicated that the rate was upwards of 87% for the financial year, up from 82% in 2021 and 2022. TV Licence evasion rates from 2018 to 2023 are as follows:
- 2018 — 72%
- 2019 — 69%
- 2020 — 81%
- 2021 — 82% (82.1%)
- 2022 — 82% (81.7%)
- 2023 — 87%
In July 2023, it was revealed that 9.2 million South Africans owe the public broadcaster R44.2 billion in unpaid TV Licence fees.
This was according to Mondli Gungubele, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, in response to parliamentary questions from EFF MP Sinawo Tambo.
Mondli Gunubele, South African minister of communications.
It should be noted that the amount of R44.2 billion doesn’t only include outstanding annual TV Licence payments but also penalties accrued for non-payment over several years.
Although the TV Licence fee isn’t the primary driver of revenue for the SABC, it is a significant contributor.
To put this into perspective, the SABC’s 2021/22 annual results revealed that it generated R85 million in revenue from TV Licence payments.
This is despite only 18% of holders paying their annual fees.
The SABC and government have proposed reworking the scheme to collect fees as a household tax to combat non-payment.
In January 2023, then-communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the African National Congress (ANC) supports the scrapping of the SABC TV Licence in favour of a household levy.
She added that government had already begun drafting the relevant framework for a household levy to replace the current TV Licence scheme.
The ANC’s national executive committee discussed the possibility of a household tax to replace the TV Licence scheme in December 2020.
It followed the publication of a white paper in October 2020, calling for fundamental changes to the SABC’s funding model.
“There will be a comprehensive overhaul of the SABC’s funding model based on international best practices to ensure that the public broadcaster has adequate funds to meet its public mandate,” the paper read.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, former Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies
The SABC also proposed a similar idea in September 2021 during public hearings for the draft SABC Bill.
It proposed that the levy should be technology-neutral and based on a household’s ability to access SABC services.
This means households will be charged the TV Licence tax even if they don’t watch the SABC’s content or own a TV.
This is similar to Germany’s Rundfunkbeitrag (broadcasting fee) — a monthly levy of €18.36 (R365.92) to help fund public broadcasting.
Moreover, the SABC proposed that South Africa’s dominant pay-TV provider — MultiChoice — should help collect the levy on its behalf.
MultiChoice said it supports the idea of a household levy but baulked at the idea of being held responsible for collecting tax revenues on behalf of a government entity.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse’s (Outa’s) view on the matter is that the TV Licence scheme has always effectively been a tax and should be treated as such.
Outa said TV licences should be outlined in a money bill and that the communications minister should not be responsible for setting the licence fees.
A household levy isn’t the only approach proposed to help fund the public broadcaster. Other proposals include new taxes, a government grant, and the privatisation of the SABC.
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