South Africa’s public broadcaster, already suffering from a lack of licence fee income and a downturn in advertising, is facing a controversial arbitration over its ‘must carry’ obligations towards pay-TV operator MultiChoice. South Africa broadcasting regulator ICASA has admitted that its negotiations with DStv and SABC have reached an impasse. SABC COO Ian Plaatjes has […]

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster has told a parliamentary committee that its financial position is grave. Overall its financial revenues are some 27 per cent below an already squeezed budget. SABC had hoped for a 64 million Rand (€3.46m) surplus this year but CFO Yolande van Biljon told MPs at a sitting of the nation’s […]

South Africa’s SABC is to launch a new streaming service branded SABC+. The public broadcaster is taking over responsibility for existing OTT services from telco TelkomOne which wants to exit the offering. SABC and Telkom launched the OTT service in November 2020 in order to offer SABC’s back catalogue and free-to-air channels on a streaming […]

There are a number of complaints coming from public and private broadcasters that Sentech, the provider of TV signals around South Africa, is overcharging and using anti-competitive behaviour. Public broadcaster SABC, itself financially challenged, has argued to the media regulator ICASA that publicly-owned Sentech, as a monopoly, is guilty of excessive pricing. Private broadcaster E-tv’s […]

South Africa’s Communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni is facing a challenging distribution plan as part of the nation’s roll-out of digital TV services. The minister is looking to install around 450,000 set-top boxes over the next eight weeks despite having taken 6 years to distribute a similar number to would-be digital viewers. South Africa is committed […]

South Africa is planning to switch off its analogue broadcasting at the end of March. But privately owned e.tv is not playing ball. It has widespread national distribution and viewership to its analogue transmissions and has said it will not comply. e.tv, owned by eMedia, is mounting a vigorous legal challenge to the Minister’s ruling. […]

APO Group, the Pan-African communications consultancy and press release distribution service, has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), providing the public broadcaster with sports content from the whole of Africa. SABC is South Africa’s national broadcaster. It broadcasts across 19 radio stations (AM/FM) and six television channels, and is […]

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster has struck a deal with Disney which allows it to tap into ESPN’s international live sporting portfolio as well as a library of key sporting content from ESPN’s archive. The SABC Sports channel will also include European football games. The output will also be available on eMedia Holdings’ free-to-view Openview […]

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster is asking the country’s media regulator, the Independent Communications Authority (ICASA) to introduce new rules which limit the amount and scope of revenue that pay-TV operators can earn. The SABC proposals cover advertising revenues as well as cash generated by infomercials, sponsorship and similar sources. SABC says the existing regulations […]

South Africa’s Multichoice is declining to add local licence fees that residents have to pay for viewing SABC transmissions. The nation has a habit of not paying such fees and the government wanted Multichoice to add the costs to their monthly/annual subscriber amounts. Currently some 24 per cent of South Africans pay the obligatory fee, […]