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, and the percentage falls every year.

The country’s Communications Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has draft legislation underway to force local pay-TV providers to add the viewing fees to their subscription bills. Owners of computer tablets and laptops will also be obliged to have a licence and pay SABC TV whether they watch SABC content or not.

Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO, during the pay-TV operator’s investors’ call last week said that MultiChoice cannot be collecting for the SABC, commenting: “Our position is simply very clear: We can’t be held responsible for collecting money on behalf of the SABC. The SABC itself needs to find a way to collect such monies”.

Other posts by :

1. Bank: “Charter racing to the bottom”
2. SpaceX IPO in June?
3. Russia postpones Starlink rival
4. Why don’t lawmakers like Netflix?
5. Viasat taps Ex-Im Bank to finance satellite
6. Bank: TeraWave not a direct threat to AST SpaceMobile
7. SpaceX lines up banks for IPO
8. SES to FCC: “Don’t auction more than 160 MHz of C-band”
9. Morgan Stanley downgrades Iridium

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Policy

Tags: multichoice, SABC, south africa