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 […]
South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC has seen three executives resign or be suspended with allegations of being involved in a “secret” contract which gave them a profit share related to the launch of SABC+. SABC COO Ian Plaatjes, group executive for video entertainment Merlin Naicker, and group executive for sales Reginald Nxumalo, allegedly concealed a […]
South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, is taking the country’s transmission operator Sentech to the Competition Tribunal, alleging excessive pricing and anti-competitive actions. Doris Tshepe, head of the country’s Competition Commission, told MPs that a commission-led effort to mediate between the parties had failed. The MPs on the country’s Committee on Communications & Digital Technologies heard […]
There are strong objections to South Africa’s proposed SABC Bill for the nation’s public broadcaster and it must be withdrawn, report local media organisations. Three influential organisations have criticised the new Bill. SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the South African National Editors’ Forum (Sanef) collectively made a submission to the […]