Broadcasting22.11.2024

South Africans should say goodbye to the SABC TV Licence

The South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) TV Licence has proven to be a dismal failure, with non-payment rising by nearly 20% over the past six years.

As a result, former communications minister Mondli Gungubele introduced the SABC Bill in October 2023 to replace the outdated Broadcasting Act of 1999 and develop a new revenue stream for the SABC.

However, the bill was eventually withdrawn by Minister Solly Malatsi, who has now been tasked with developing a new funding model for the state broadcaster to replace the TV licence.

One suggested alternative is a household levy. However, there is disagreement about how it should be collected.

Two proposals are that the South African Revenue Services (SARS) or DStv owner MultiChoice must help collect the levy. MultiChoice has opposed the latter proposal, saying it was unreasonable to expect a competing private entity to assume responsibility for collecting government revenues.

Another option is to enforce local content requirements on streaming operators in South Africa. If an operator cannot meet the threshold, they must contribute to a fund promoting local content creation.

This fund can then be used to finance the SABC’s public broadcasting mandate.

The need for a TV licence stems from the Broadcasting Act, which states that no person may use a television set unless they have a TV licence issued against payment of a prescribed fee. This also applies to businesses.

It also states that those who fail to pay their TV licence fees will be liable to pay double the prescribed fee or, in the case of using a TV without a licence for less than a year, to pay 10% of the cost for each month they have used the device.

However, South Africans seem to remain unphased by the consequences of contravention, as the compliance rate plummeted from 31% in 2018 to 13% in 2024.

“When laws are absurd, their observance becomes absurd, too,” says Gary Moore, attorney and Free Market Foundation senior associate.

“But when disregard for the law enters the psyche of any society, it becomes difficult to have that society respect useful laws such as those against harming persons or property.”

The SABC’s difficulty is that the same law that obligates South Africans to pay a TV tax also requires it to comply with a very stringent broadcasting mandate.

This mandate requires the SABC to programme its five TV channels and 18 radio stations to treat all population segments equally and broadcast a wide variety of audience interests in all official languages.

The SABC has noted that this comes at a significant cost and makes attracting advertising revenue difficult for more niche broadcasting segments, resulting in a financial loss.

Enter the TV licence, which was supposed to plug this hole.

However, a decline in TV licence revenue from R968 million to R741 million between 2018 and 2023, advertising revenue from R4.58 billion to R2.61 billion over the same period, and the entity reporting a R1.13 billion loss in 2023 has called for a revamp of its funding model.

In addition to this, national and provincial governments and municipalities owed nearly R35 million in unpaid TV licence fees earlier this year.

Yet, while the SABC has said that its public service mandate is costly because the content doesn’t appeal to advertisers, Media Monitoring Africa director William Bird said this wasn’t entirely accurate.

Bird said the content produced as a public service that was supposed to be funded by TV licences has generated most of the state broadcaster’s commercial revenue.

Regardless, the SABC Bill tabled by Gungubele last year reproduces all provisions of the Broadcasting Act, including the requirement that South Africans obtain a TV licence and pay a sum to the SABC.

Regarding the SABC’s funding model, the bill stipulated that the communications and finance ministers must co-develop a new one within three years — time the SABC does not have given its dire financial position.

South Africa’s new Communications Minister, Solly Malatsi, took issue with the bill developed by his predecessor — and now deputy — and withdrew it.

He said he had invoked his discretionary powers as Minister to cancel the bill after wide-ranging consultations with stakeholders and reviewing public submissions to Parliament’s communications portfolio committee.

“This approach does not meet the urgency required to stabilise the broadcaster and risks perpetuating an outdated licensing structure that will not provide the SABC with the necessary resources to fulfil its mandate,” Malatsi said

Malatsi also took issue with the bill granting the communications minister additional powers over appointments and dismissals of SABC board members.

He argued that this endangered the SABC’s editorial independence.

Although several media stakeholders applauded the Minister’s intervention, it also drew criticism from Gungubele and Khusela Diko, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications.

Diko and Gungubele seemed frustrated by the progress lost due to the bill’s withdrawal.

“When you remove the bill to deal with the financial model, it means that when you come back, you have to start another long process so that you have a legal basis for it,” Gungubele said.

“I find it illogical because the bill is already in the parliamentary process.”

Gungubele explained that once the bill is in this parliamentary process, members of Parliament have it, and all that needs to be done is amend the parts that undermine its ideal intention.

On the other hand, Diko said that while respecting the Minster’s decision to withdraw the bill was ill-advised and “would sound the death knell for the SABC.”

In a briefing to the parliamentary communications portfolio committee, Malatsi announced that his department aims to first finalise the audio and audiovisual content services (AAVCS) policy framework before developing a new timeline for fixing the SABC’s funding model.

This follows the Minister being given until the end of the 2024 financial year to submit an alternative for the SABC Bill to the parliamentary communications portfolio committee.

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