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The ailing SABC has recorded the biggest TV licence evasion rate ever, with more South Africans tuning out than even during Covid-19 times.

The SABC says its revenue from TV licence fees continued to decline in the 2022/2023 financial year, revealing that the TV licence evasion rate over the last financial year was “somewhere upwards of 87%”, increasing from the 82% evasion rates in 2021 and 2022.

SABC Board chair Khathutselo Ramukumba said as much during a briefing to Parliament’s Communications and Digital Technologies portfolio committee early last week.

Less than 13% of TV licence holders paid their fees last year, compared to roughly 18% in the two previous years.

Back in good old 2018, 72% gave SABC the finger, but this number jumped to 87% in 2023 as a general disdain for paying anything to government entities has seemed to set in.

The chairman also confirmed previous reports about a loss of over R1 billion in the SABC’s 2022/2023 financial year. “This board is inheriting an institution which has reported a loss of R1.1 billion at the end of March 2023,” he said.

Ramukumba blamed several factors on the loss, including increased competition from streaming services, load-shedding, and the analogue switch-off reducing advertising revenue. When the previous board was appointed, the SABC was roughly in the same financial position. “Over the last five years, that loss was beginning to decline, or there seemed to be progress,” Ramukumba said.

The SABC’s losses decreased from R977 million in the 2017/2018 financial year to R200 million in 2021/2022 — then multiplied over five-fold in the latest financial year.

Those improvements were supported by a substantial cut in the broadcaster’s workforce, with over 600 retrenchments in early 2021, and a recent tax-funded bailout of R3.2 billion.

“The projections for the 2022/2023 financial year were that the SABC would be breaking even with some marginal profit being reported, unfortunately, despite the interventions of our predecessor board and the bailout, progress that has been made in reducing those losses did not come to fruition.”

‘Projected progress not coming to fruition’ might as well be etched into the government’s coat of arms.

Ramukumba said the broadcaster was currently using “ailing” revenues from the commercial side of the business to finance its public service mandate, which was unsustainable.

“The loss position proves the answer of the unsustainability of this current funding model,” he said.

The SABC has proposed that the country’s dominant pay-TV broadcaster and streaming services collect the fees on its behalf. Civil society organisations like the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) agree that the SABC needs a new funding model, but using private entities and online streaming services to force people to pay up is not a good idea.

They also bemoaned an idea to add tax to the sale of electronic devices that can access the SABC’s platforms. Like your car radio, cellphone, etc.

For nearly six out of the 12 months of the 2022/2023 financial year, South Africa’s public broadcaster had no board to oversee the SABC’s operations and expenditures.

This is being blamed on the portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies leaving the interviews, public participation, and vetting processes to the last minute, the Speaker of Parliament taking two weeks to forward the recommended candidates to the president’s office, and finally the president taking over three months to approve the board.

Whatever the reasons, it now falls on the SABC to come up with a plan to make ordinary South Africans shoulder the burden. If the SABC survives for another ten years, it won’t be because of outstanding management, it will be because they will have found another way to shaft ordinary South Africans in some way.

See what happens when you cancel 7de Laan?

[source:mybroadband]