During the year, SABC was gearing up for the rollout of a second news channel only known as SABC eKhaya. After failing to rollout the news channel, the public broadcaster had a soft launch for the brand on their DTT platform featuring content already viewed on their linear platforms and archived material.
Similar to SABC Sport, the plan was to feature a "fresh offering" once the channel managed to garner traction and the public broadcaster was looking to negotiate with other broadcasters in the hopes that they could distribute the channel onto their platforms.
But as seen in recent months, consumers had been affected by load shedding that some went as far as cutting back on their DStv subscription and other expenses as the outcome of these blackouts had left people jobless and led some entrepreneurs to lose their businesses.
The SABC blames Eskom on why their revenue continues to drop in recent months and also the reduction of analogue frequencies and streamers like Netflix for why SABC+ is struggling. It was also stated that the public broadcaster had to delay the rollout of new channels due to the blackouts impact on viewership.
For almost two years, consumers had been awaiting on an update from SABC on the status of two yet-to-be-launched channels on Openview alongside SABC Education's expansion to pay-tv outlets. Since SABC hasn't been able to meet up with any of its deadlines and with these outlets rolling out new channels, consumers will just lose interest.
Unlike SABC, Multichoice and eMedia Investments continue to expand their content and portfolio of linear channels. Despite the decrease in consumption, there's still consumers viewing these brands and rolling out those "new channels" could have helped reduce their financial constraints as opposed to pausing/scrapping shows like The Estate and uBettina Wethu.
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