TV Licence evasion rate has jumped to 87%<\/strong>\u00a0in the 2022\/23 financial year, an increase from 82% in the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOver 9 million South Africans owe upwards of R44 billion in unpaid licence fees – which the SABC is unlikely to ever see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ramukumba said that the organisation recorded a R1.1 billion loss in the financial year ended March 2023, which he blamed on intensified load shedding, further competition from \u201cunregulated\u201d streaming services, the analogue switch-off and a decline in advertising revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said that the loss is now in line with what the last board started with five years ago, negating the declining losses that the previous board was able to achieve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe projections for the 2022\/2023 financial year were that the SABC would be breaking even with some marginal profit being reported,\u201d he said<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, despite the interventions of our predecessor board and the (R3.2 billion) bailout, that progress that has been made in reducing those losses did not come to fruition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He added that the SABC is relying on struggling revenues from its commercial operations to fund its public service obligations, a situation which he said is not sustainable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Changes incoming<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nThe current thinking is to do away with TV Licences entirely and instead replace the failed system with a household levy. This has been the proposal that enjoys the most political support, and has been touted by the ANC and department players since 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Previous proposals for this levy have been that it be technology-neutral and based on a household\u2019s ability to access SABC services. This means households will be charged the TV Licence tax even if they don\u2019t watch the SABC\u2019s content or own a TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Other avenues being explored in making the SABC commercially viable is expanding its reach and service offering – with proposals that it be given a legislative mandate to operate satellite television, radio, and Internet services internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stakeholders have argued that any financial aid used to fulfil the SABC\u2019s public mandate should be done in a responsible and fair way that does not limit competition with other commercial radio broadcasters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The department, on the other hand, argued that this does not fit with international best practices, as, for instance, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has a commercial arm that sells its channels and the OTT platform while also commercialising its content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SABC has also entered the OTT space, with it launching its streaming service SABC Plus in November last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nRead: South Africans give TV Licences the middle finger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cabinet has approved the new SABC Bill to be tabled in parliament, which will lay out the government’s plans to make the public broadcaster more financially sustainable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":209609,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-722074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722074","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=722074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":722078,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722074\/revisions\/722078"}],"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=722074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=722074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=722074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}