Update: 13 September 2024
The chairperson of the Portfolio Committee for South Africa’s Communications and Digital Technologies Khusela Sangoni said that the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is still facing a significant crisis if its funding model is not urgently revised, Cape {town} Etc reports.
SABC has faced financial difficulties in recent years due to persistent challenges in collecting TV licence fees coupled with the growing digital offerings of streaming networks.
Airtime sales, content distribution and advertising as well as government grants and TV licence fees make up the public broadcaster’s revenue. Despite the ongoing financial strain, the SABC is committed to improving its financial standing and is working closely with the Portfolio Committee to explore new funding options with the goal of achieving probability by March 2028.
Part of SABC’s recovery plan is to revise its streaming option, SABC+, forecasted to attract more than half a million users by March 2025.
Another essential element is to create a more effective way to collect TV licence payments, by means of a household levy that would apply to all households with access to SABC services, regardless of actual usage. The broadcaster reports that evasion rates have surged from 69% in 2019 to 87% in the current financial year.
There are differing views on how the SABC’s funding model should be reformed and these ideas are still under consideration and have not been formalised into policy just yet.
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) wants to impose a household levy on all devices, including radios and mobile phones, for all South Africans as an alternative to the current TV licence system.
Ian Plaatjes, the chief operating officer of SABC, revealed that the public broadcaster intends to put forth arguments for the inclusion of this levy under the SABC Bill, which was presented to Parliament earlier this month.
Also read: Cabinet approves SABC’s new proposed TV licensing system
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The broadcaster is hoping that the household levy will be approved as an alternative revenue model in order to enhance its funding.
This levy had previously been proposed in 2021 in discussions of revamping broadcasting policies. It would be calculated based on the practical ability of South Africans to access public broadcast content.
In August, SABC disclosed that 81.7% of TV licence holders failed to remit their annual fees for the 2021/22 fiscal year. This resulted in a mere R815 million contribution towards the total TV licence bill of R4.45 billion.
The suggestion of implementing a household levy was met with resistance from committee members who argued that South Africans were already grappling with the increasing cost of living.
Natasha Mazzone, a member of the DA and the party’s spokesperson on communications and technology, strongly criticised the idea of a compulsory levy, asserting, ‘We can all agree that our country is living in a crisis of the cost of living every day,’ reports News24.
IFP member Zandile Majozi said South Africans are not paying their TV licences because the broadcaster’s offerings are not appealing.
Majozi said, ‘The SABC needs to pull up their socks. It is not that people cannot pay for their TV licences; the mentality is, why should I pay when I get programmes [that] are not what I want? People prefer to pay for Netflix, Showmax, and DStv every month.’
According to the chief executive officer of the civil organisation, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), Wayne Duvenage, there are few ways the SABC can implement a household levy.
‘The only government department that has the capability to implement a levy is local government departments, and even these municipalities do not have enough money. They can barely pay Eskom,’ Duvenage told News24.
Duvenage added, ‘We are already an overtaxed nation. People have begun to become fed up.’
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