{"id":644961,"date":"2026-05-04T17:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=644961"},"modified":"2026-05-04T17:10:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:10:37","slug":"the-sabc-should-get-more-money-from-taxpayers-says-top-diplomat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/644961-the-sabc-should-get-more-money-from-taxpayers-says-top-diplomat.html","title":{"rendered":"The SABC should get more money from taxpayers, says top diplomat"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Clayson Monyela, Deputy Director-General for Public Diplomacy at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, said South Africa’s public broadcaster should get more public funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a post on Twitter\/X<\/a>, Monyela said the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the most commercially dependent public broadcaster in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His post was accompanied by an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated comparison of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) with the SABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The SABC has a public service mandate and is not a profit-driven entity,” Monyela said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The SABC is currently the most commercially dependent public broadcaster in the world, a position that is unusual and unsustainable for a developing country.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He added that the SABC’s global peers, such as the BBC and ABC, were funded primarily by the state to protect their independence and their public mandates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the public broadcaster is meant to generate much of its revenue from TV licence fees. However, South Africans have increasingly refused to pay the R265-per-year fee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV licence payment avoidance rates rose from 69% in 2019 to 86% in 2024, with just 14% of TV licence holders paying their annual fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SABC reported a slight improvement in 2025, when 15% of holders paid their dues. However, these high avoidance rates have resulted in the SABC losing out on large chunks of revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government promised to address the SABC’s funding crisis in the long-awaited SABC Bill. However, the initial draft contained no solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The draft SABC Bill gave the ministers of communications and finance three years within which to develop a sustainable funding model for the public broadcaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solly Malatsi withdrew the bill shortly after he was appointed Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, with the aim of introducing a better replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) appointed BMI TechKnowledge (BMIT) in September 2025 to help develop the new funding model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After a delay due to the December holiday period, BMIT gave a redacted public Parliamentary presentation<\/a> on its findings in February 2026, with its report finalised shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the DCDT’s Annual Performance Plan for 2026\/27 revealed that it only planned to conclude the SABC Bill<\/a> for submission to Parliament in 2027\/28.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It planned to revise the bill and gazette it for public comment in the 2026\/27 financial year. It said the gazetting would be a critical policy reform intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This output contributes to the sustainability and viability of the public broadcaster, enabling it to fulfil its public mandate,” the department said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mixed funding required<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Slide illustrating BMIT’s holistic approach to the SABC’s funding model, presented to the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Given the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies’ timeline, it could still be a while before any new funding model is implemented at the SABC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communications minister Solly Malatsi called a special meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies following the submission of BMIT’s report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the meeting took the form of a closed questions-and-answers session<\/a>. However, BMIT managing director Chris Geerdts presented an overview of the company’s report.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geerdts explained that a holistic approach that considers revenue, costs, and funding elements that require legislative and regulatory updates was the only way to solve the SABC’s dire financial situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said the SABC would require a mix of commercial revenue sources and public funding to fulfil its mandate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding public funding options, he said BMIT considered various household fees, a levy, government grants, “innovative options”, and a null category where the SABC gets no taxpayer funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BMIT also considered various collection agency options to tackle the high non-payment rate, or “pirate viewer” problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Options included making municipalities and utilities, the South African Revenue Service, the ICT and media industry, financial institutions, other third parties, and the SABC responsible for collection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geerdts didn’t present any findings or proposals in the session, but said BMIT recommended loosening regulations on certain content quotas to help manage costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The removal of this red tape would enable the SABC to commission content more easily to remain competitive, gain access to grant funding to promote local content, and license its content more easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tax that everyone must pay<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the outcome of this process remains uncertain, SABC bigwigs, such as CEO Nomsa Chabeli and board chair Khathutshelo Ramukumba, have advocated for a household tax to replace the TV licence<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November 2025, Ramukumba said a tech-neutral, universal public media levy was the best alternative to the SABC’s TV licence scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He argued that the TV licence scheme assumed that all residents watch TV on a single screen in their living rooms, which is no longer the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the rise of streaming and other platforms, many residents now consume content on phones, laptops, and gaming consoles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ramukumba said the household tax could be collected by the national tax collector, the South African Revenue Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His comments followed a similar stance to Chabeli’s. However, her reasoning differed. Chabeli said the TV licence scheme had failed due to a culture of non-payment in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She, too, advocated for a tech-neutral media levy to be paid by all households, regardless of whether they own a TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malatsi subsequently said that replacing the TV licence with a tax payable by all households would be a “terrible idea”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about the stance on a household levy, the SABC later told MyBroadband that the final determination on the funding model remains with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communications minister Solly Malatsi said he believed a household levy was a bad idea that would not work in practice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SABC is the most commercially dependent public broadcaster in the world, according to Deputy Director-General at the Department of International Relations and Cooperation, Clayson Monyela.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":644962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[101775,11151,83571,89684,76862,19949,34465],"class_list":["post-644961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-bmi-techknowledge-2","tag-clayson-monyela","tag-household-levy","tag-household-tax","tag-solly-malatsi","tag-south-african-broadcasting-corporation-sabc","tag-tv-licence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644961"}],"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=644961"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":645001,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644961\/revisions\/645001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}