{"id":614174,"date":"2025-10-17T10:59:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T08:59:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=614174"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:00:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:00:15","slug":"stern-warning-to-the-sabc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/614174-stern-warning-to-the-sabc.html","title":{"rendered":"Stern warning to the SABC"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

State signal distributor Sentech says it can no longer afford to carry the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC’s) non-payment of signal distribution costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presenting<\/a> before the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, Sentech CEO Tebogo Leshope described the matter as “extremely urgent”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said Sentech believes the issue of non-payment by the SABC cannot be deferred to the finalisation of the SABC Bill or the finalisation of its new funding model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If there’s one thing we want this Portfolio Committee to note from our sustainability concern, it is the inability of the key customer to pay,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is a material and significant risk that we are facing right now. Simply put, it is a disaster in the making because we have run out of financial capacity to aid the SABC account.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leshope said the SABC will have short paid its signal distribution payments by 25% to 30% in the 2025 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The monthly invoice is about R67 million. For the 2025 financial year, the SABC, on a month-to-month basis, paid R51 million there, which was a short payment of about R16 million,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is a concern for us. We do believe that this non-payment matter cannot be deferred to the finalisation of the SABC Bill or the finalisation of the funding model. It is extremely urgent.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue of non-payment for signal distribution by the SABC has been a significant concern for Sentech for some time now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies chair Khusela Diko recently warned that the SABC could face a signal blackout<\/a> by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She warned that Sentech could not continue “carrying” the SABC without the broadcaster paying for its signal distribution services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“They indicated that they don’t think they can continue with their operations in the current state beyond the end of December this year,” said Diko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital migration adding pressure<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In addition to its woes of the SABC not paying for its services, Sentech faces another significant financial drain: running both analogue and digital TV signals simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Known as dual illumination, the practice has been costly for the signal distributor, and the SABC is one of the broadcasters forcing it to maintain both signals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

South Africa’s broadcast digital TV migration project has dragged on at a snail’s pace since the country switched on its first digital terrestrial television signals in November 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate goal of the migration was for everyone who relied on a terrestrial TV signal (i.e. not satellite) to switch to digital and terminate South Africa’s old analogue TV broadcasts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free-to-air broadcasters, such as the SABC and eMedia, are concerned that prematurely terminating analogue signals would leave many of their viewers without access to critical information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As these broadcasters generate much of their revenue from advertising, they are also concerned that a premature switch-off could cause major harm to their finances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until such time as analogue TV signals are switched off in South Africa, Sentech must continue to run both signals simultaneously, incurring significant costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2024, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies said dual illumination had cost R1.23 billion<\/a> over the past decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also said no funding had been allocated for dual illumination in the previous financial year, 2024\/25. It said dual illumination costs were estimated to be between R90 million and R167 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below shows South Africa’s annual dual illumination spending between 2014\/15 and 2023\/24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Year<\/th>Dual Illumination cost<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
2023\/24<\/td>R131,236,588<\/td><\/tr>
2022\/23<\/td>R136,398,570<\/td><\/tr>
2021\/22<\/td>R167,082,781<\/td><\/tr>
2020\/21<\/td>R146,000,150<\/td><\/tr>
2019\/20<\/td>R130,562,733<\/td><\/tr>
2018\/19<\/td>R134,933,181<\/td><\/tr>
2017\/18<\/td>R89,805,901<\/td><\/tr>
2016\/17<\/td>R100,727,869<\/td><\/tr>
2015\/16<\/td>R100,727,689<\/td><\/tr>
2014\/15<\/td>R89,348,963<\/td><\/tr>
Total<\/strong><\/td>R1,226,824,425<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sentech CEO Tebogo Leshope says addressing the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s failure to pay its signal distribution costs is “extremely urgent”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":508036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[13395,80939,97967,96893,97680,2760,19949],"class_list":["post-614174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-analogue-switch-off","tag-broadcast-digital-migration","tag-dual-illumination","tag-portfolio-committee-on-communications-and-digital-technologies","tag-sabc-bill","tag-sentech","tag-south-african-broadcasting-corporation-sabc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614174"}],"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\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614174"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":614241,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614174\/revisions\/614241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}