Sentech Launches Freevision Play, A Streaming Service With No Monthly Fees

State-owned broadcasting company Sentech has launched Freevision Play, a free streaming television platform that may compete with the likes of SABC+ and eMedia’s Openview.

Described by the company as a “ground-breaking over-the-top video streaming platform”, Freevision Play will offer free access to a “wide array of local and community TV and radio channels”.

“Freevision Play is available to everyone with an internet connection and can be accessed via smartphones, tablets and smart televisions,” Sentech said in a statement on Wednesday. The service is available through freevisionplay.co.za, the company said. A Freevision Play app is also available for major smartphone operating systems.

The platform empowers users with access to educational, informational and entertainment content.

None of the SABC channels was available, although it was offering a range of community channels, including Soweto TV and Cape Town TV as well as something called the Brics Africa Channel. There was also a limited number of radio stations available to stream, but again none of the SABC channels is offered. No major commercial channels are available either.

“The platform empowers users with access to educational, informational and entertainment content, thereby fostering learning and engagement across the nation,” Sentech said in its statement.

“For broadcasters, Freevision Play offers an innovative solution to reach a broader audience without the high costs associated with creating and maintaining their own OTT (streaming) platforms and the challenge of aggregating audiences,” it said.

“By joining Freevision Play, broadcasters can expand their viewership, engage with their audience more effectively, and generate additional revenue through advertising. Freevision Play takes care of the upfront investment costs. It creates a multi-tenant platform, giving viewers and listeners a diverse range of choices while providing broadcasters with new audiences and viewers.”

Sentech emphasises that Freevision Play is “completely free to access”. It said users can also get access to on-demand catch-up content without a subscription.

“This ensures that everyone, regardless of their economic status, can benefit from the wealth of content available on the platform,” it said.

Sentech To Launch Streaming Platform To Rival SABC+

The SABC is Sentech’s biggest client — by far. But that’s not stopping the state-owned broadcast signal distributor from formulating plans to rival the public broadcaster in streaming services.

While the SABC has been without a board for several months, Sentech has been making plans to launch what appears will be a competitor to SABC+, the streaming service launched by the public broadcaster late last year when it took over management and operation of Telkom One, a joint venture it had with Telkom.

News of Sentech’s plans to offer a so-called OTT service (over the top — industry jargon for streaming) emerged in parliament on Wednesday when communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the company will “soon launch a homegrown OTT platform that will be anchored by Nemisa but which will be available to other content producers”. Nemisa is a state-owned non-profit in Ntshavheni’s portfolio that focuses on technology education, including in multimedia production.

The launch plans come amid growing tension between the SABC and Sentech over signal carriage fees.

“Our goal is to eventually make this platform the home for quality films, documentaries and children’s stories, in addition to SABC+,” the minister told MPs.

Sentech plans to launch the OTT platform in the first quarter of the 2024 financial year – that’s sometime between March and May this calendar year. A Sentech spokeswoman was on leave and not immediately available to comment further on the platform and its planned content offerings.

The launch plans come amid growing tension between the SABC and Sentech over the signal carriage fees the latter charges the former to distribute its terrestrial channels to South African audiences.

The SABC and its commercial free-to-air rival e.tv last year accused the broadcasting signal distributor of excessive pricing and anticompetitive behaviour.

Formal submissions
Their broadsides against the state-owned enterprise were included in formal submissions to communications regulator Icasa, in which they called for urgent regulatory interventions in the signal distribution market to deal with alleged monopolistic abuses by Sentech.

The submissions form part of a market inquiry by Icasa into the signal distribution services market. Sentech has asked that the regulator’s discussion document be withdrawn because, among other reasons, updated legislation to govern audiovisual services is in development and Icasa’s investigations shouldn’t pre-empt these potential policy changes.

E.tv parent eMedia Investments said in its submission to Icasa that it is “deeply concerned at the fact that the issues relating to significant market power in relation to signal distribution services have been ignored for decades”.

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“This is despite pleas by the broadcasters that the market needed urgent regulation. Indeed, Icasa recognised as far back as 2010 that there was an urgent need to regulate the market due to Sentech’s undisputed dominance,” eMedia said. “Yet Icasa has taken no steps in this regard… All this has been to the detriment of broadcasters and caused them financial harm.”

The SABC also strongly criticised Sentech’s tariffs and behaviour, describing them as “not appropriate or correct”. It said its concerns led to the creation of a “chart of accounts project” at the public broadcaster to determine the fairness or otherwise of Sentech’s fees.

“The details of the various costs per service and per transmission site have been requested from Sentech with the objective of understanding how the structure of the cost for each service was derived. Sentech has not been cooperative in this regard for the past two years,” the public broadcaster alleged in its submission.

The SABC also filed a complaint against Sentech at the Competition Commission in 2021, in which it accused the signal distributor of “unfair and anticompetitive pricing”.