Openview’s 3.2 million lie
eMedia has admitted in court papers that Openview does not have 3.2 million viewers potentially missing out on the Rugby World Cup.
This comes after the broadcaster repeatedly claimed the number in media statements, full-page newspaper ads, and court documents.
“3.2 million digitally migrated South African households will be deprived from viewing the Rugby World Cup on Openview,” it said in a statement issued on 8 September.
South Africa’s public broadcaster, the SABC, parroted this claim.
“The SABC can confirm that it is indeed restricted by MultiChoice’s anti-competitive terms & conditions and cannot broadcast to the over 3.2 million households on the Openview platform.”
MultiChoice-owned SuperSport imposed the restriction on the SABC with sub-licensing deals for the Rugby and Cricket World Cups.
Under the terms of the agreement, the SABC can broadcast all games featuring the Springboks and Proteas.
However, MultiChoice prohibited the public broadcaster from showing any matches on third-party platforms — excluding platforms compelled to carry the SABC’s channels by South Africa’s “Must Carry Regulations”.
eMedia has taken MultiChoice to court, arguing that the restrictions are unlawful.
MultiChoice has disputed the allegations and ripped into eMedia’s claim that 3.2 million households are affected.
Citing the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa’s (BRC) monthly Television Audience Measurement Survey statistics, MultiChoice said the total viewership of SABC 2 on Openview was only around 61,606 as of 31 March 2023.
In response, eMedia accused MultiChoice of straw-manning its argument.
“Secondly, the suggestion that the 3.2 million figure is wildly overblown is not correct,” eMedia stated.
“The latest figures from the BRC confirm that there are 2.6 million active OpenView users in South Africa as at September 2023.”
Although 600,000 less than its claimed figure, eMedia used the BRC’s statistics to show that around 8 million viewers depend on Openview alone to watch the SABC’s channels.
It further contextualised this number since not all 8 million viewers would necessarily watch the Rugby or Cricket World Cup.
“To understand the numbers of households that may wish to tune into the Rugby World Cup matches, the best estimation available would be to look at the 2019 Rugby World Cup statistics,” eMedia argued.
“In this regard, the live broadcast of the 2019 Rugby World Cup match between South Africa and England was the highlight of the sporting broadcasting calendar and achieved an audience share of 41.9%. The final attracted 3,979,807 viewers.”
Of those nearly four million viewers, eMedia said about 22% would watch on Openview.
That equates to around 875,000 total viewers (not households) that would potentially watch a Rugby World Cup final featuring the Springboks on Openview.
While this number is substantial, it is a far cry from the millions eMedia implied were impacted.
Update — Statement from eMedia
“Openview has 3.2 million households activated. This is a fact,” eMedia said in an emailed statement.
“The 2.6 million number that cited is the one that the Broadcasting Research Council (BRC) is currently using, but their numbers are adjusted annually, so there is always a lag.”
eMedia argued that this is similar to how DStv publishes its subscriber numbers, which are also typically higher than the BRC’s.
“For example, DStv has over 8 million subscribers, but the BRC currently uses a number of just over 7 million.”
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