SABC TV Licence law failure

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) Bill, recently withdrawn by communications minister Solly Malatsi, does not offer a solution to the public entity’s funding crisis.

This is according to Media Monitoring Africa director William Bird, who spoke to 702 after the minister withdrew the Bill.

Malatsi’s decision drew the ire of Khusela Diko, the chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications, who said the minister had derailed a years-long process.

Asked whether Diko’s argument that Parliament could have fixed the SABC Bill holds water, Bird said that it was fundamentally flawed from the start.

He likened transforming the Bill into something useful to trying to turn a goat into a Ferrari.

Bird said the proposed law did nothing to address the SABC’s current funding crisis and did not offer new ideas.

When asked about the Bill’s proposal to establish a separate commercial entity within the SABC to help fund its public service mandate, Bird said that, too, was nothing new.

“This idea that is put forward in the Bill is not new. It’s how the Bill is currently structured and has been for the last 27 years,” says Bird.

“The idea is that you have a public-commercial entity that funds the public side of it. However, the reality is that it has worked in the exact opposite way.”

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

He says the way forward is for the SABC to identify what it needs public funding for and urgently address those concerns.

One concern is how much it is being billed by Sentech, the state-owned broadcasting infrastructure provider, which many have proposed should be ended.

Another is to examine how other state broadcasters facing financial crises are implementing funding models, as Bird highlights that the SABC is not the only one in its position.

SABC chairperson Khathutselo Ramukumba recently argued that governments worldwide “heavily fund their public broadcasters in order to meet their public service mandate.”

Ramukumba said that the SABC is far worse off than these countries, given the multiplicity of languages and cultures that must be expressed as part of its public service mandate.

The same law that obligates South Africans to pay a TV tax also holds the SABC to a very stringent broadcasting mandate, requiring it to programme its broadcasting in a way that is often unappealing to advertisers.

The Broadcasting Act of 1999 requires SABC to programme its five TV channels and 18 radio stations to treat all population segments equally and broadcast various audience interests in all official languages.

This comes at a significant cost and makes attracting advertising revenue difficult for more niche broadcasting segments, resulting in a financial loss.

The SABC recently proposed a household levy as a new funding model to help the state broadcaster collect the necessary revenue to adhere to its public service mandate.

The SABC said the South African Revenue Services (SARS) and DStv owner MultiChoice must help collect the levy as part of the model.

MultiChoice has baulked at this, saying it was unreasonable to expect a private sector competitor to assume responsibility for collecting revenue on a government entity’s behalf.

SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli has also told Parliament that the broadcaster would need interim relief while an alternative funding model is being developed.

The SABC Bill stipulated that the ministers for finance and communications must conduct a feasibility study and develop a new funding model within three years of it being enacted.

This would have required the state to fund the SABC until the minister developed the new funding model.

On Sunday, the minister withdrew the Bill because it lacked a credible funding model, a view shared by several broadcasting experts, former SABC executives, and media watchdogs.

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.

The draft bill was first published in October 2023 by then communications minister Mondli Gungubele after several years of consideration, based on inputs from key industry stakeholders — including the SABC itself.

It was intended to replace the Broadcasting Act of 1999, which is considered outdated, given developments in the broadcasting and streaming industry in the past few years.