Sky Sports has secured an extension to the broadcast rights to rugby union from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina. The agreement provides viewers with at least 150 fixtures a year headlined by the top club and international matches from the southern hemisphere until 2025, including Home Nations Summer Tours, The Rugby Championship, Super […]

South Africa’s Competition Commission has hit Facebook’s parent, Meta, with alleged “abuse of dominance” and is seeking a hefty fine for Facebook. The Commission, in a statement which included references to Meta subsidiaries WhatsApp and Facebook South Africa, says that it has cited the two companies for prosecution at the Competition Tribunal and would be […]

South Africa’s ongoing cellular spectrum auction has already raised more cash than was expected. The session on March 11th ended with bids of more than 8 billion Rand (about €484m). “ICASA is pleased to announce that the auction is proceeding very well and can confirm that we have gradually passed estimated R8-billion in proceeds. The […]

The Nigerian government has been pursuing South Africa’s MultiChoice for alleged multi-billion Rand unpaid tax duties on its pay-TV subscriptions in the county. MultiChoice has always denied the full implications of the tax demand and now says it has reached an “amicable resolution” of the taxation matters. “In broad of agreement,” says a statement, “MultiChoice […]

South Africa’s ICASA telecommunications regulator has started its long-planned spectrum auction. The opening moves (the ‘opt-in’ process) started on March 8th with six players involved: Telkom, Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Liquid Intelligent Technologies and Rain. The second round opens on March 10. Bidders have to attend the ICASA offices in Pretoria in person and at […]

In February, South Africa’s pay-TV giant DStv announced that it was limiting access to its broadcasts to ‘one device at a time’. Previous flexibility which allowed two (and up to four) devices in a home to access transmissions will be cancelled from March 22nd. Now the lawyers are getting involved. DStv said that it had […]

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. […]

South Africa has confirmed that its analogue television transmissions will end on March 31st. The process is more than 10 years behind the initial plan which was to see 80 per cent of the nation converted to digital in time for the FIFA World Cup which started in June 2010 The ending of analogue broadcasting […]

South Africa’s government has allocated an additional Rand 300 million (about €17.5 million) in its annual budget for regulator ICASA for 2022-2023. The cash means an increase in ICASA’s budget of more than 50 per cent and comes ahead of its March planned spectrum auction. “[The] additional funding of R300-million in 2022/2023 is earmarked for […]

South Africa’s communications regulator ICASA has approved six bidders for next month’s capacity auction. They are Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Liquid Intelligent Technologies and Rain. The invitations to apply and to submit for the auction was issued back in December 2021 with a requirement to firm up their applications by January 31st. However, telco […]