Call to scrap TV licences

AfriForum says TV licences must be scrapped, and the SABC should be privatised.

This is according to comments the civil rights organisation submitted in response to the South African Broadcasting Corporation SOC LTD Bill.

Parliament published the bill for public comment in October last year, and communications minister Mondli Gungubele was criticised for its lack of action.

Instead of proposing new funding models for the SABC, the bill stipulates that the minister must develop a funding model framework within three years of the president signing it into law.

This framework must ensure that most of the SABC’s funding is sourced from the State.

The communication minister must also develop a comprehensive feasibility study, in consultation with the finance minister, to provide a clear business case before establishing the funding model.

In the meantime, the proposed legislation requires the SABC’s existing TV licence system to remain in effect.

What frustrated industry watchers and civil society groups is that this came after a lengthy public consultation process that began in October 2020.

Mondli Gunubele, South African minister of communications

Key stakeholders all agreed that TV licences must be scrapped and replaced with a general household levy, similar to Germany’s Rundfunkbeitrag.

While there was heated debate about how to collect the tax, the SABC and MultiChoice agreed that a household levy was the most realistic option.

Scrapping TV licences in favour of a household levy is also one of the ANC’s resolutions adopted at its December 2022 national elective conference.

Civil action group Outa previously argued that the SABC should be funded with a government grant. If TV licences are retained, Outa said it should also be treated like a tax through a money bill passed by Parliament rather than a single minister setting the fee.

A new model is needed because, with the rise of online streaming, people are increasingly accessing SABC content on devices other than traditional TVs and radios.

South Africans are also refusing to pay their TV licences, with the SABC calculating that the licence evasion rate stood at 85.8% at the end of its 2023 financial year.

This is up from an 82% evasion rate in 2022.

Stated differently, only 14.2% of households who previously bought a TV licence paid their bill in 2023. The evasion rate does not account for people who never had a TV licence.

Even South African government entities owed the SABC R56 million in TV licence fees at the end of the 2023 financial year.

Scrap TV licences or privatise the SABC

On Monday, Afriforum submitted its comments on the SABC bill to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies.

Where industry players favoured a household levy to replace TV licences, AfriForum believes a more radical approach is necessary.

It proposed scrapping TV licences or privatising the public broadcaster to solve its struggles with funding, corruption, mismanagement, and wasteful expenditure.

“AfriForum’s main solution proposes the privatisation of this state-owned enterprise,” it stated.

“However, if the government rejects this decentralisation of state power, the alternative is for TV licences to be scrapped. Either way, the current dysfunctional status quo cannot continue.”

In its submission, AfriForum argued that privatisation would reinvigorate the SABC and lead to better efficiency, higher quality programmes, and financial stability.

“Privatisation would also help fight corruption and mismanagement,” AfriForum said.

AfriForum cited the high evasion rates and the unjustifiable extra financial burden licences place on poor households as arguments for scrapping TV licences.

AfriForum also suggested possible alternative sources of funding, such as partnerships, sponsorships, and collaboration with private entities.

AfriForum public relations head Ernst van Zyl said the South African government has had more than enough time to turn the dire and deteriorating situation at the SABC around.

“It’s time for an alternative — a non-state-centric approach,” he said.

Van Zyl said that given the high TV licence evasion rate, they should be scrapped and replaced with an alternative funding model that actually works.

“In the case of the SABC being privatised, TV licences would naturally become a thing of the past,” he said.