Pay your TV licence? It’s the right thing to do? Is it?

Remember those “it’s the right thing to do” ads compelling you to pay your TV licence? I always found them hilarious because it was tantamount to the SABC begging people to pay a fee it struggles to enforce.

Granted, back then, the SABC still curated content I was excited about. Sure, today they probably still do curate content many people like, but significantly less.

At R265 a year (or R28 a month including a “small premium for the convenience”), SABC TV licences remain the cheapest content cost compared to streaming services and premium broadcasters. Yet, South Africans have gotten used to using the services of the SABC for free. By the SABC’s own admission, more than 30% of South Africans would be imprisoned if the provisions of the Broadcast Act were to be enforced. So why has this become a big deal?

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The people who can afford to subscribe to Netflix and/or DSTV, rarely have need for the services of the SABC… at least the television stations… so to be made to pay for it seems ludicrous.

In what world would you pay a levy for water when you only drink Coke?

Oh wait… umm… let’s try again. In what world would you pay for a school your kids never go to? Ah, another bad example. One more. In what world would you pay to build a road you’d never drive on? Oh… sigh… this isn’t working.

It seems we’ve always been paying for services we may never use. The manner in which the SABC has gone about it just seems too direct to be palatable for most people.

The other issue is the running of the SABC itself. One shocking revelation after another with the licence payer footing the bill and, frankly, if the SABC got its affairs together with all its channel infrastructure, it could be profitable without licence fees. So being forced to pay for somebody else’s stuff ups seems to be an unfair expectation… yet we do it and in the private sector too… it’s just that when you chose to pay and have the option of opting out, it’s easier to stomach.

I mean, I’m not particularly stoked about 3 million bucks going to Mampitsha and Babes Wodumo for a reality series, but if it upsets me enough I can cancel my Showmax account. I can’t exactly do that with the SABC unless I want to throw away my TV (but then I can’t play PlayStation)… and possibly soon to be phone, tablet and anything else that plays videos.

Really, the issue is the SABC is simply bad at spending money. While the challenge of creating content that appeals to a very diverse audience is obviously difficult, you’d think the national broadcaster would attract talent up to the task.

Actually, if you looked at the line-up, you would be impressed with the amount of locally produced content and its variety. The problem is, if you paid more, you could get better content elsewhere… and therein lays the rub.

SABC executive Sylvia Tladi has been vocal in the media, lamenting just how outdated the regulations surrounding the SABC are, which doesn’t allow for it to compete. That’s only true insofar as it relies on TV licences to fund operations… but she’s ignoring just how outdated the SABC itself is. Exploiting its vast infrastructure has not been a thing and internal issues have plagued the broadcaster again and again.

Perhaps, while we’re looking at reform, we should also be looking at the question of what exactly is the point of the SABC? Yeah it’s all good and well to have a public broadcaster but if the mandate is simply to “supply broadcasting and information services and services that are ancillary thereto, to the general public in the Republic of South Africa and beyond its borders and to achieve the objectives as set out in the Broadcasting Act”, surely that can be done more efficiently and effectively?

It wasn’t long ago that newsrooms were cost centres of broadcasters but it was a licence requirement to broadcast. It wasn’t long ago that the state actually made use of private industry to help fulfil its mandates. One of the mandates of the SABC is to collect licence fees just as much as another is to provide content.

If the SABC is willing to outsource its mandate to collect its licence fees, it’s not a jump to consider forcing streaming and premium services to provide free local content… just make it the cost of doing business.

Maybe I’ll be proven wrong. Maybe the premium services won’t like my idea. Maybe the public won’t.

What is certain is that collecting more TV licence money won’t necessarily save the SABC from itself and if it wants to explore the option and open the door to using private industry to collect fees, it will have to be wary of other options on the table.

Richard Anthony Chemaly, entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer in communication ethics.

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