{"id":343766,"date":"2019-10-01T08:12:53","date_gmt":"2019-10-01T06:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=343766"},"modified":"2019-10-01T08:12:53","modified_gmt":"2019-10-01T06:12:53","slug":"most-south-africans-have-stopped-paying-their-tv-licences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/343766\/most-south-africans-have-stopped-paying-their-tv-licences\/","title":{"rendered":"Most South Africans have stopped paying their TV Licences"},"content":{"rendered":"

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) tabled its 2018\/19 annual report in parliament on Monday (30 September), showing that the national broadcaster is technically insolvent.<\/p>\n

The SABC reporting a net loss of R482.4 million for the year ending March 2019, with the main contributors of losses being sporting events and interest incurred as a result of the broadcaster’s liquidity constraints.<\/p>\n

A further contributor to the loss is the decline in total revenue by 3% to R6.4 billion from that of the 2017\/18 financial year, with advertising decreasing by R241 million (5%) compared to the previous year.<\/p>\n

The SABC also only collected R968 million in TV licence fees over the period, indicating a fee evasion rate of 69% <\/strong>of the known TV licence holders not paying their licence fees.<\/p>\n

While this is an improved collection rate compared to the previous year (where evasion was at 72%), it means that less than a third of licence holders are currently paying their fees on time.<\/p>\n

Increases<\/strong><\/p>\n

Presenting in parliament<\/a> <\/b>earlier\u00a0in September, SABC board chairperson Bonamisa Makhatini said that it was not sustainable to run the broadcaster on these collection rates and that the current licence fee is too low.<\/p>\n

The current annual TV licence fee is R265 a year. South Africans are required by law to pay for a TV licence if they wish to use devices which can function as a television.<\/p>\n

Makhatini said that this R265 fee was the equivalent of 72 cents a day,<\/p>\n

\u201cHow much do you pay a guy who is looking after your car at a parking mall? Surely you pay them more than 72 cents? There are more South Africans who\u00a0can afford to pay R1 a day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you won\u2019t pay a guy who looks after your car 72 cents, what about the SABC which gives you 19 radio stations, five TV channels, and who plays such a critical mandate in educating, informing and entertaining our general public.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that it may be possible to change legislation at a later date to protect the country\u2019s indigent people from fee increases.<\/p>\n

This change can not be made unilaterally by the SABC and would require an amendment of the national broadcasting act as well as permission from the minister of communications.<\/p>\n

\n

Read: SABC moves ahead with plans to increase TV licence fees<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) tabled its 2018\/19 annual report in parliament on Monday (30 September).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":209609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-343766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343766"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":343820,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343766\/revisions\/343820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/209609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}