South Africa Broadcasting has been under financial pressures and severe monetary constraints for some years. Local reports say that pressure is mounting on communications minister Solly Malatsi to act to rescue the SABC as it struggles to pay its escalating bills. September 8th saw reports that State-owned signal distributor Sentech, whose primary client is SABC, […]

South Africa’s department of communications & digital technologies has stepped in with an effort to solve the long-running dispute between public broadcaster SAB and transmission company Sentech. The move has seen the government publish a tender document in an attempt to solve the dilemma between two state-backed entities. “There has been an ongoing tariffs dispute […]

South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC is asking the nation’s government to alter how the broadcasting TV Licence is structured. In essence, it wants to absorb the VAT element, and keeping the 15 per cent for itself, and not handing over the sum to the nation’s treasury. SABC is cash-strapped. Speaking in Parliament SABC CEO Nomsa […]

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has announced that SABC Plus, its OTT streaming platform, has reached 1 million registered users since its relaunch in July 2024. The surge in registrations has been largely attributed to live sports broadcasts, which have regularly attracted over 60,000 new users per major game. Additionally, the recent #SwitchToStream campaign […]

A carriage agreement between South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC and pay-TV operator MultiChoice struck in 2013 and which saw MultiChoice carry SABC’s channels on its system has emerged from a legal problem. South Africa’s Competition Tribunal on April 14th said it had dismissed an “exception application” brought by MultiChoice over a channel-supply agreement with the […]

A proposed restructuring of South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC by the country’s Communications & Digital Technology parliamentary committee has been stopped by the nation’s Communications minister Solly Malatsi. The move has led to criticism that the proposal will “sound the death knell” for the broadcaster. SABC is widely understood to be near-bankruptcy. The complaints are […]

South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC has added 500,000 new registered users to its free SABC+ streaming service in three months. The revamped service was launched on July 3rd offers ‘catch-up’ content, VoD and live streaming of SABC’s television and radio channels. SABC said a combination of programming including the Paris summer Olympic Games, the Cote […]

South Africa’s communications minister Solly Malatsi has intervened in the increasingly bitter row between South African public broadcaster SABC and the nation’s broadcasting transmission company, Sentech. SABC is objecting to the fees Sentech is levying to carry the broadcaster’s signals across the country. In his statement, Malatsi claimed that 3 million South Africans were “at […]

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster has its staff deadlocked in what are long running pay negotiations. The powerful Communication Workers Union (CWU) is now threatening a full blown strike. SABC and CWU have been talking since July 2023 about a pay rise. SABC offered 6 per cent, which was accepted by the CWU but the […]

BBC Studios and South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) have announced BBC Primetime, a new content block for the S3 channel, featuring a selection of award-winning dramas, factual entertainment and documentaries from BBC Studios’ catalogue. BBC Primetime will be available to watch weeknights between 21:00 and 23:00 on S3 and on SABC+ from May and is […]