SuperSport, a MultiChoice subsidiary, licensed the exclusive rights to broadcast the Rugby World Cup in South Africa.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice SA CEO Marc Jury said in their answering affidavit that they reached a last-minute deal with the SABC to broadcast 16 matches live, including every Springboks game.<\/p>\n
The SABC reportedly raised<\/strong><\/a> $3 million (R58 million) to pay for the rights from three sponsors \u2014 Castle Lager, Hollywoodbets, and Pineapple.<\/p>\n Jury said they helped facilitate the last-minute approval of these sponsors with World Rugby.<\/p>\n However, the sub-licence prohibited the SABC from airing matches on third-party platforms it doesn\u2019t own, like the eMedia-owned Openview.<\/p>\n In their answering affidavit, Jury argued that eMedia had every opportunity<\/a><\/strong> to bid for the 2023 Rugby World Cup rights themselves when World Rugby invited broadcasters to do so in 2018.<\/p>\n eMedia could also approach MultiChoice directly for a sub-licensing deal.<\/p>\n \u201ceMedia\u2019s case is a classic example of free riding \u2014 seeking to profit off another\u2019s expense without contributing at all,\u201d stated Jury.<\/p>\n In their responding affidavit, eMedia CFO Antonio Lee said MultiChoice\u2019s argument reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about their application.<\/p>\n He said eMedia is not seeking to broadcast the rugby matches on any of its channels, whether E-tv or any other \u201ceChannel\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAll that eMedia seeks is to carry<\/em> the full content of the SABC channels on the OpenView platform, in accordance with its contractual entitlement in terms of the agreement with the SABC,\u201d Lee stated.<\/p>\n Lee said in this context, Openview is simply a carriage operator facilitating the distribution of the SABC\u2019s channels.<\/p>\n \u201cNor will eMedia gain any revenue from the broadcasting of the matches on SABC2 from advertising, sponsorship,\u201d said Lee.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the matches are shown on SABC2, all advertising revenue and sponsorship will accrue to the SABC.\u201d<\/p>\n Marc Jury, MultiChoice SA CEO and Showmax acting CEO<\/p><\/div>\n However, Jury (MultiChoice) contended that removing the third-party restriction from its deal with the SABC would have altered the price.<\/p>\n He explained that SuperSport had paid a substantial sum to secure the exclusive rights for DStv to broadcast the Rugby World Cup.<\/p>\n In essence, this helped increase the value of DStv Premium and would hopefully drive uptake of the service.<\/p>\n MultiChoice has to recoup the value lost by sub-licensing its rights to free-to-air broadcasters like the SABC and eMedia.<\/p>\n To further argue the point, Jury explained that non-exclusive rights are worth much less.<\/p>\n \u201cIn MultiChoice\u2019s experience, the value of broadcasting rights is likely to drop by approximately 80%, or more, when sold on a non-exclusive basis,\u201d Jury said.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, in 2019, SuperSport entered into a licence agreement to pay an amount for non-exclusive sports broadcasting rights, which was the equivalent of 14% of the price which it had paid for exclusive rights to the same sporting event approximately six years earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n eMedia\u2019s Group Executive for Legal and Business Affairs, Philippa Rafferty, told MyBroadband that this argument by MultiChoice is a red herring.<\/p>\n \u201cSABC is paying for free-to-air rights, and the rugby should be available on all free-to-air platforms,\u201d Rafferty stated.<\/p>\n \u201cThe rugby is available on SABC\u00a02 on all other platforms in South Africa, including analogue, DTT [digital terrestrial television], DStv, StarSat and even OTT.\u201d<\/p>\n OTT is short for over-the-top and refers to online video streaming services. SABC is showing the rugby through its SABC+ and SABC Sport streaming websites.<\/p>\n \u201cTo suggest that SABC needs to pays more to show it on Openview does not make sense as there is already no exclusivity in the rights being on Openview,\u201d Rafferty argued.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only conclusion we can draw from MultiChoice and SuperSport\u2019s restriction on Openview is to damage the goodwill of eMedia and the Openview platform.\u201d<\/p>\n eMedia has hit back at MultiChoice\u2019s allegations that it is looking for a “free ride” to broadcast the Springboks’ Rugby World Cup matches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":510904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[89916,85,51025,35,85277,475,50823,89914,61003,88794,19949,3516,88792],"class_list":["post-510902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-antonio-lee","tag-dstv","tag-emedia","tag-headline","tag-marc-jury","tag-multichoice","tag-openview","tag-philippa-rafferty","tag-rugby-world-cup","tag-rugby-world-cup-2023","tag-south-african-broadcasting-corporation-sabc","tag-supersport","tag-world-rugby"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510902"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":510906,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510902\/revisions\/510906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/Marc-Jury-MultiChoice-background.jpg\")
<\/a>
\nNow read: Movie ticket prices in South Africa \u2014 2014 vs 2023<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"