{"id":308343,"date":"2019-06-02T07:20:28","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T05:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=308343"},"modified":"2019-06-02T07:22:31","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T05:22:31","slug":"stop-blaming-dstv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/308343-stop-blaming-dstv.html","title":{"rendered":"Stop blaming DStv"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following MultiChoice <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/307888-dstv-will-go-out-of-business-if-changes-made.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>instituting court action<\/strong><\/a> against ICASA over its inquiry into the pay-TV market in South Africa, <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/telecoms\/224850-icasa-ceo-leaves-regulator-following-suspension.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>former ICASA CEO<\/strong><\/a> Pakamile Pongwana has heavily criticised the regulator.<\/p>\n<p>In a column written for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.timeslive.co.za\/sunday-times\/opinion-and-analysis\/2019-06-02-icasas-pay-tv-proposals-are-deeply-flawed\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Sunday Times<\/strong><\/a>, Pongwana states that ICASA&#8217;s proposed changes to the local pay-TV market &#8211; which aim to boost competition and lower subscription prices &#8211; are deeply flawed.<\/p>\n<p>He said the following matters were problematic:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There is an assumption that other pay-TV operators failed locally because of MultiChoice.<\/li>\n<li>No direct evidence of why pay-TV licensees did not enter the local market, or what contributed to their failure, is shown.<\/li>\n<li>ICASA has dismissed the importance of OTT players like Netflix.<\/li>\n<li>No concrete numbers on the size of Netflix locally were obtained.<\/li>\n<li>Not allowing for exclusive sports broadcasting rights could cause massive damage in South Africa.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Pongwana said these factors must be considered before further steps are taken by ICASA.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Court battle<\/h3>\n<p>MultiChoice taking ICASA to court so it can obtain more in-depth information about the pay-TV inquiry took place in the same week as ICASA&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/306884-icasa-to-hold-public-hearings-over-sports-broadcasting-regulations.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>public hearings<\/strong><\/a> on the Draft Sports Broadcasting Services Amendment Regulations.<\/p>\n<p>These look at how South Africans can access national sporting events and how minority and developmental sport receives exposure.<\/p>\n<p>The pay-TV market inquiry and sports broadcasting regulations both pose a risk for MultiChoice, as the company\u2019s DStv and SuperSport brands often acquire exclusive broadcasting rights to major sporting events.<\/p>\n<p>Forcing MultiChoice to give up exclusive sports broadcasting rights will seriously hurt DStv and its business model. If sporting events are made free-to-air or MultiChoice is forced to share its broadcasting rights, they lose a competitive edge \u2013 and subscribers may not see the point of having a DStv subscription.<\/p>\n<p>Organisations like SA Rugby and SAFA have also stated that they derive\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/290816-big-plans-to-break-multichoices-dstv-monopoly-on-sport.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>large parts of their income<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0from MultiChoice, as the company pays them for TV rights.<\/p>\n<p>ICASA\u2019s inquiry into the pay TV market \u2013 which shares certain elements with the sports broadcasting hearings, but is a separate process by the regulator \u2013 is also troublesome for MultiChoice as they say it ignores competition from Netflix.<\/p>\n<p>MultiChoice has said that ICASA does not understand the broadcast terrain and that the regulator must provide \u201cinformation, evidence, and research that underpins its draft findings\u201d, stated the report.<\/p>\n<p>Once this information is provided, MultiChoice will be able to supply a comprehensive response to the regulator.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/308327-bbm-is-dead.html\" rel=\"bookmark\">BBM is dead<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former ICASA CEO Pakamile Pongwana has heavily criticised the regulator.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":280627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[85,35,533,475],"class_list":["post-308343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-dstv","tag-headline","tag-icasa","tag-multichoice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308343"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308345,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308343\/revisions\/308345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}