SABC TV Licence problem

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has revealed that government departments owe it nearly R35 million in unpaid TV licence fees.

City Press reports that licences for 2,490 TV sets owned by government departments remain unpaid, and overall TV licence avoidance increased to 86% in the 2023/24 financial year.

It should be noted that government departments have reduced their unpaid TV licence bills compared to the previous year, in which the SABC said government entities owed R56 million.

According to SABC chief financial officer Yolanda van Biljon, the public broadcaster billed roughly R5 billion in TV licence fees in 2023/24 but only collected around R726 million.

TV licence non-payment has been rising in South Africa, with avoidance rates ranging from 69% in 2019 to 86% in 2024. TV licence avoidance rates in the country from 2018 to 2024 were as follows:

• 2018 — 72%
• 2019 — 69%
• 2020 — 81%
• 2021 — 82%
• 2022 — 82%
• 2023 — 84%
• 2024 — 86%

The public broadcaster is facing two major disconnection threats: the government’s plan to switch off the country’s analogue TV signals later this year and South Africa’s signal distributor Sentech’s threat to cut its transmissions due to non-payment.

The current analogue TV switch-off deadline of 31 December 2024 has been a point of contention for the public broadcaster, with it fearing that many South Africans may be left behind.

The issue is that South Africans with analogue TV sets require a government-subsidised set-top box (STB) to receive digital TV signals before the deadline arrives.

Without the STB, these households will lose access to TV broadcasts.

“As digitisation occurs, the SABC and South Africans shouldn’t be disadvantaged. TVs being cut off is a national problem. Don’t switch off just because a deadline’s being chased. Ensure TV viewers are switched over,” City Press quoted Van Biljon as saying.

The SOS: Support Public Broadcasting Coalition recently warned that prematurely switching off analogue TV signals could harm the SABC.

According to SOS Coalition national coordinator Uyanda Siyotula, the public broadcaster’s audience numbers declined by 40% when the analogue TV signals were cut off in five of the country’s provinces.

“If we’re looking at the big provinces, it’s going to lose more than 60%,” she said.

However, communications minister Solly Malatsi recently assured that he would make a final decision on the 31 December 2024 deadline well before that date.

“One thing I will not do is to leave the pronouncement on that decision very late and very close to that deadline because it just creates unhealthy and unnecessary anxiety in the sector,” the minister told MyBroadband in an interview.

He acknowledges that a premature switch-off could leave many households without TV access, harming the public broadcaster and E-tv.

“There is a very genuine concern about the approximately 400,000 households that are still on analogue and whether we can migrate them to digital before December,” he said.

“I have a responsibility to ensure that we don’t leave South Africans behind.”

The SABC’s non-payment of state signal distributor Sentech has resulted in its debt to the entity rising to nearly R1 billion, prompting Sentech to threaten to cut off the SABC’s TV and radio signals.

However, it was recently given a lifeline by Malatsi, who facilitated a deal where Sentech won’t switch off the SABC’s TV signals for at least two months while it explores alternative funding models.

“Following a meeting between the SABC and Sentech, I’ve taken a decision to enable roughly three million South Africans to continue enjoying access to radio and television services,” said Malatsi.

“These South Africans were at risk of losing access to radio and TV due to the SABC’s struggles with paying Sentech, but after meeting with both parties, we’ve agreed to keep services running for the next two months while we explore long-term solutions.”