SABC streaming beating rivals

The SABC has announced that its video streaming service, SABC+, has recorded one million registrations, while independent Internet traffic analysis shows the service’s usage is obliterating local competitors.

The milestone comes less than a year after the SABC+ website, mobile, and TV apps were relaunched with support for multiple new platforms and features.

The service offers live streaming of all the broadcaster’s free-to-air TV channels — including a 24-hour news channel and SABC Sport — as well as its 19 radio stations.

In addition, users can watch CatchUp content, including highly popular soaps and series, on demand.

The SABC says the service’s performance has exceeded its expectations.

According to National Treasury, the SABC had previously only targeted one million subscribers by the 2026/2027 financial year.

The SABC said the significant milestone highlighted the success of the broadcaster’s digital migration strategy and the growing demand for accessible, high-quality local content.

“The surge in registrations has been largely driven by live sports broadcasts, which have consistently attracted over 60,000 new users per major game,” the broadcaster said.

“Additionally, the recent #SwitchToStream campaign has further accelerated the platform’s growth by educating audiences on the convenience and accessibility of SABC Plus across multiple devices.”

SABC digital marketing manager Khanyisa Melwa said the broadcaster was thrilled that South Africans were embracing the service.

“The response to live sports, lifestyle entertainment, and special events like the Metro FM Music Awards has been phenomenal,” Melwa said.

The SABC is hopeful that the streaming will generate much more advertising revenue and help the broadcaster return to profitability in the 2025/2026 financial year.

In its five-year strategic corporate plan, SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli said the broadcaster was looking forward to SABC+ becoming a standalone business unit.

“To compete in the streaming world, we really need to focus and be more deliberate on how we take this to market and monetise this,” she said.

Chabeli acknowledged that for the SABC to be competitive with Netflix and Prime Video, it needed to invest in new content.

“The catalogue is very critical, and we are going to ensure that we exploit it not just for ourselves but also to be able to licence it globally to other streaming services,” Chabeli stated.

Giving competitors a hiding

Data from online traffic analysis website Similarweb also shows that the SABC+ has recorded substantial growth in recent months.

SABC+ ranked as the 463rd most-visited website in South Africa in December 2024. In January, the service had amassed close to one million visitors.

In February 2025, it recorded a decrease to 861,100 visitors but climbed to 388th in the country as most websites saw less traffic due to the shorter month.

During the 28 days leading up to 9 May 2025, SABC+ ranked as the 235th most-visited website in the country, with 1.644 million visitors.

For comparison, we aggregated Similarweb’s data for SABC+’s free video streaming service competitors. They recorded under 275,000 visitors for the May period.

That is despite SABC+ switching to a completely new platform and URL in July 2024, which also required users to re-register.

The table below compares how SABC+ performed relative to its competitors in South Africa in recent months.