Bad news for ending DStv’s sports monopoly

If the government wants the SABC to show more live sports events of national importance on free-to-air television, it must first fix the public broadcaster’s dire financial situation or foot the bill for the broadcasting rights to such content itself.

That is according to seasoned broadcasting journalist Thinus Ferreira, responding to explosive comments from the recently appointed sports minister Gayton McKenzie.

McKenzie recently said he would “go to war” with the broadcasters if they were unable to reach an agreement to allow all South Africans to watch the country’s national sports teams participating in important matches or events.

“The national team doesn’t belong to MultiChoice or SABC or E-tv. None of them should act like the national team belongs to them,” said McKenzie.

“I’m not going to be an enabler of the majority of our people not being able to watch the national rugby team or soccer team,” he continued.

“There exists legislation — which has never been used — that prevents them from engaging in the current action that they are engaging in. I intend to fully use that legislation,” vowed McKenzie.

“I will make sure that South Africans can all watch.”

While McKenzie avoided specifically naming DStv or its parent company MultiChoice as the main sinner, his comments were evidently most applicable to the pay-TV platform.

The company often obtains the exclusive right to broadcast sought-after Springbok and Proteas matches and makes them available only on its most expensive DStv Premium service, which starts at R799 for a streaming-only package.

A sceptical Ferreira described McKenzie’s statements as “populist breadcrumbs for the masses” or “TV Happy Meals” that deliberately omit or are totally ignorant about broadcasters needing to pay for content.

“Gayton McKenzie has no history, education, or practical experience of the inner workings of the global and local broadcast industry,” Ferreira said.

“DStv’s ‘monopoly’ on sports broadcasting exists because MultiChoice and SuperSport are paying for sports rights and secure these directly when they come up, which are years before sport teams appear on the field.”

“If SuperSport doesn’t pay for the multi-million-rand sports rights of certain rugby or football or is barred from doing so, somebody still must,” Ferreira said.

“It doesn’t mean that now the rights will magically be free.”

Sports rights costs dictated by the free market

Ferreira explained that big sporting codes know they can make money because of the demand from viewers to see their sport.

“Of course they will maximise the revenue they can make by selling it for as much as they can — to benefit themselves and the sporting codes,” Ferreira said.

“It’s how a free market and commercial sports within that paradigm operates.”

Ferreira also said that private broadcasters with deeper pockets could generally deliver better quality coverage than public broadcasters.

“Compare the Comrades marathon on TV when it was shown by the SABC to how it looks the past few years after SuperSport took it over,” he said.

“The money from sports rights funnels down to the operating expenses on club and team levels to make the sport look better on TV.”

Ferreira pointed out that the lack of the most sought-after content on a public broadcaster was not unique to South Africa.

“Is big English rugby on BBC Sport? No. The BBC secures some because it likewise can’t pay what Sky and other commercial broadcasters can for rights,” he explained.

Ferreira said it’s not wrong for McKenzie to focus on sports rights or the desire to improve the situation, but his focus seemed misplaced.

“Fix the SABC financially so that it can directly bid for rights years in advance, properly, instead of sublicensing, for selected big matches or events in key sporting codes,” he advised.

Ferreira called on the government to start by tackling smaller individual problems at the SABC to fix the greater issues in the long run. The problems he highlighted include:

• The “horrific” repeat rate and rebroadcasts of stale old content
• Lack of funds to programme quality content in multiple genres in all of South Africa’s official languages
• An inability to pay producers for basic content
• Studios and broadcast infrastructure falling apart
• The long-running lack of South African broadcasters and streamers like Netflix paying producers and actors residuals like in the US
• A bloated, money-wasting South African Sports Awards ceremony

Alternatively, Ferreira said if McKenzie did not want SuperSport or any other private broadcaster or streaming service acquiring the rights to show sports of national significance, the minister and his government should put the money down themselves.

“The South African government has severely underfunded the SABC for decades,” Ferreira said. “SABC News, for example, cannot run without MultiChoice literally paying for it.”