Sabc Faces R7.3b Funding Gap As South Africans Evade Tv Licence Fees

The South African Broadcasting Corporation SABC needs R7.3 billion to fund its public mandate in the medium term amid declining revenue from TV licence fees.

This emerged from the SABCs briefing to Parliaments Standing Committee on Public Accounts SCOPA on Wednesday 14 May.

CEO Nomsa Chabeli said SABC has two mandates - public and commercial. However, the cost of the public mandate is currently unfunded.

SABC, from a commercial perspective, takes commercial revenue to fund the public mandate. Thats our current model. 55 of our mandate costs are funded and they are funded by declining TV licence fees, she explained.

Less than 20 of South African households who should be paying for TV licences do so. In comparison, in the United Kingdom, compliance is at 80. This is a big factor in the British Broadcasting Corporations BBC sustainability, Chabeli said.

She added that 83 of SABCs revenue comes from commercial activities, while only 13 comes from TV licences. Additionally, the TV licence fee has not changed in a long time in line with inflation.

"R7.3 billion over the medium-term expenditure framework MTEF period of public mandate costs are unfunded, meaning that, that money has to come from our commercial activities which makes it very difficult, the CEO explained.

So, we are self-funding at the moment and what this does really, it impacted our ability to reinvest in ourselves.

The SABC incurred a R700 million loss in the 2023/2024 financial year, according to its management and board.

This as the government considers alternative funding models to the TV licence model, including a levy for streaming platforms such as Showmax and Netflix.