What are your thoughts on SABC's motion to scrap TV licences?

You may recall back in the early days of home television where the concept of a TV licence was first introduced. The system was initially designed to help public broadcasters raise funds to ensure that they collected sufficient revenue from their prospective viewers. 

In short, if you owned a television and had access to public broadcast, a TV licence acted as a sort of subscription service you had to pay for no matter what you used your television for.

Of course, as public broadcasting evolves, so too does funding structures which means that the concept of a TV licence is not only outdated but completely ineffective. As such, South Africa's public broadcaster, SABC, has now recently pushed for a rehaul of this system in order to "redefine" their licensing structure, and achieve a better footing in terms of effective revenue collection.

SABC plans to introduce levies

For the better part of a decade, the SABC has been working through a variety of financial setbacks that are unaided by an outdated revenue system. This, coupled with the fear of being shut down completely, has urged them to restructure their TV licence system into a public broadcaster tax or levy on households.

"SABC's view is that it should be replaced by a technology-neutral, public broadcasting household levy that would exempt the lower-income households and should be part-collected by the dominant pay-TV operator," a spokesperson for the SABC said.

The public broadcaster's initial solution was that because MultiChoice is now South Africa's largest broadcaster, the onus should be upon them to act as fee collectors on both theirs and SABC's behalf. They further went on to state that their reasoning for this is based on "pro-competitive measures."

MultiChoice fired back with their own proposal, stating that they support a levy restructuring since they have called for it for years, but that the burden should be upon the South African Revenue Service and not on private service operators.

Cabinet approved bill

Back in July, Cabinet approved a bill that would "strengthen the financial, operational and governance position of the embattled public service broadcaster." However, the SABC did not believe that the bill would adequately sustain the financial problems that they had been facing. They concluded that the bill "does not provide for further government grant funding for public interest programming."

The SABC further stated that the bill continues to uphold the outdated TV licence model which is tied to individual television sets. They state that they are concerned about what an administrative burden linking each device would be and that it would make future-proofing highly impossible.

"The SABC recommends that a household levy system based on the possibility of access to SABC services - rather than usage - should be implemented," a submission from the SABC to Cabinet stated.

The SABC hopes to adopt a similar model used by German public broadcasters implemented in  2013.

Saving Jobs

While it is likely we will see a change in revenue structuring, it may take up to two to three years before legislation is properly finalised. While the legal process may be held up in parliament for some time, the public broadcaster stresses that fair and effective revenue structuring will go a long way to mitigating their financial woes. 

They further went on to state that quick and effective restructuring will not only save the public broadcaster but will also continue to keep hundreds of employees at work and employed. 

The public broadcaster concluded their summary by thanking Parliament for the opportunity to implement better revenue structures and looked forward to furthering talks on finalising an audiovisual policy on content and the development of more rigid legislation.

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