{"id":867808,"date":"2026-07-29T11:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=867808"},"modified":"2026-07-29T11:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T09:06:08","slug":"end-of-tv-licences-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/media\/867808\/end-of-tv-licences-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"End of TV Licences in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) intends to remove TV licences in the country, as the system becomes increasingly ignored, with a new plan coming in the 2028 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SABC is a state-owned broadcasting agency that provides free television and radio channels in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company focuses on providing educational and children’s content, making this accessible to a large number of South Africans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TV licences were introduced in South Africa in 1975, and all citizens who own a television are required to hold one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The licence costs R265 annually, with these funds going to the SABC to support its continued operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, the state-owned company has faced financial pressure, recording a loss of over R250 million in the 2025 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This grew from the previous year’s losses, which reached approximately R197 million, underscoring the company\u2019s dire financial situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the company\u2019s primary revenue sources should be TV licence subscriptions, but the non-payment rate for this has been climbing in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2025 financial year, there were over 1 million unpaid TV licence fees, representing an 85% non-payment rate.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The non-payment rate has been steadily rising and stood at 72% in 2018, up 13 percentage points in seven years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The broadcaster is set to receive roughly R234 million per year in government funding over the next three years to support its operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this funding will primarily be used for educational and children’s content for its channels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government funding may be inadequate, with virtually no prospect of covering any shortfalls through TV Licence fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to these major funding challenges, the SABC and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies have been in discussions to revise its funding model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These discussions have explored several different funding models which could potentially replace the failing TV licence system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans for a new funding model<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
Communications Minister Solly Malatsi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies is currently working on a draft SABC bill to present to South Africa\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This bill will propose a new funding model for the broadcaster and is widely expected to remove the current TV licence system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the draft bill is incomplete and is expected to be presented to parliament within the 2028 financial year.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department is currently conducting research into viable funding models for the broadcaster, combining public and commercial revenue sources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BMIT, a research company contracted to research funding methods for the SABC, proposed several alternatives for the state-owned broadcaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These alternatives included a combination of commercial revenue sources and public funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The commercial revenue side included proposals involving advertising, sponsorships, and subscriptions for some of its services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Public funding options could involve government grants and individual levies, similar to the current TV licence approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other proposals included reviewing the current debt collection structure and including other entities, such as municipalities, in the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BMIT managing director, Chris Geerdts, said many options have been explored, but no new plans have been announced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said loosening regulations around public mandate quotas could help the SABC move towards a profitable business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Loosening these regulations would allow the company to license and commission new content more easily, boosting its offerings and helping it remain competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SABC spoke to MyBroadband<\/a> in April and said it needed to generate approximately R1.7 billion in revenue from its remaining mandated content production.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comes as the broadcaster can no longer rely on TV licence revenue to support itself, leaving commercial revenue as the only way to bridge the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also said that the current government funding is insufficient to cover the shortfall from TV licence non-payment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, South Africa\u2019s TV licence system remains in effect, but many expect the model to fall away in favour of a more profitable funding model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The SABC is planning to remove TV licenses in the country, as the system becomes increasingly ignored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":807687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2082398484485853190","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5554],"tags":[18460,25962,25961,667],"class_list":["post-867808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-bmit","tag-chris-geerdt","tag-department-of-commnications-and-digital-technologies","tag-sabc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867808","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=867808"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":867923,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/867808\/revisions\/867923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=867808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=867808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=867808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}