This move follows a U-turn by the public broadcaster, which recently admitted to making significant strategic errors by cutting popular Afrikaans content and moving its flagship news bulletin.
SABC head of platforms David Makubyane told Rapport that the broadcaster needs to expand its offering rather than scale down, despite its dire financial situation, to better fulfil its public benefit mandate.
“We actually need more TV channels, instead of scaling down,” Makubyane stated.
“Now that we have the digital space, one asks: Why don’t we have a Nguni channel? Why don’t we have an Afrikaans channel? Or a children’s channel or a documentary channel?”
In addition to such plans, the SABC is in the final testing phase of a dedicated RSG app. The app is designed to reach Afrikaans radio listeners globally and follows a recent redesign of the station’s website.
These developments come as the SABC attempts to repair its relationship with the Afrikaans community.
The broadcaster previously admitted that cutting long-running shows like 7de Laan and Fokus was part of an “expensive trial-and-error” process that lacked proper market research.
In addition to cutting the two–decade–old shows, it moved all its remaining Afrikaans programming to S3 (formerly SABC 3), which has substantially lower viewership and advertiser appeal.
That included shifting the Afrikaans news bulletin from 18:30 on SABC 2 to 20:30 on S3. That move was widely criticised by Afrikaans viewers, many of whom said they were already in bed by that time.
The broadcaster’s complete omission of the bulletin over the weekend of 5 and 6 April 2025 caused an uproar.
The SABC’s Afrikaans strategy confused many industry insiders, who warned that the Afrikaans audience was still attractive to advertisers.
The public broadcasters’ own research showed that DStv’s kykNET was the most valuable channel for advertisers in South Africa.
While many viewers and industry commentators concluded that the SABC’s decision was ideologically motivated, the real reason it wanted to move Afrikaans programming to S3 may be more nuanced.
In a presentation to a parliamentary subcommittee about potential financial models to replace SABC TV Licences, BMIT revealed that SABC 2 was classified as “non-commercial”, whereas S3 was a commercial channel.
Another R700 million bailout
The SABC’s grand ambitions are being overshadowed by a deepening financial crisis that threatens its very ability to remain on air.
The broadcaster informed the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications in February that it urgently requires R120 million in additional funding to cover the upcoming local government elections.
National Treasury rejected it, and SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli warned that without this funding, the broadcaster will be unable to deploy the necessary infrastructure and personnel for nationwide election coverage.
“Without funding, the SABC will not be able to deploy infrastructure, personnel and resources on an appropriate scale nationwide for sufficient election coverage,” Chabeli told the subcommittee.
The financial pressure is compounded by a massive R1.5 billion debt owed to the state-owned signal distributor, Sentech. The SABC is currently unable to pay this debt, which has left Sentech itself at risk of collapse.
The broadcaster is currently pinning its hopes on a R700 million bailout from the National Treasury, which was recently earmarked to help settle the historic Sentech debt and ensure operational continuity.
Communications minister Solly Malatsi recently confirmed that a R700-million allocation announced for his department in the 2026 Budget Speech will go towards clearing the SABC’s debt.
“This is primarily to ensure that, from a Sentech liquidity perspective, we keep the operations to ensure that all broadcasters can have access to signal distribution.”
Article was published by Mybroadband
No comments:
Post a Comment