Old-style SABC licence fees do not work
Eighty years ago this week, Germany’s invasion of Poland triggered the outbreak of a world war. A year earlier, Neville Chamberlain had famously brandished a piece of paper whose promise quickly unravelled. Coincidentally, long before the outbreak of the war, Britain had prepared its citizens for the blackouts that would become a permanent feature of the ensuing war.
The parallels between pieces of paper that offer promises that are quickly betrayed, blackouts and ambitious politicians hold particular relevance for SA today. Finance minister Tito Mboweni recently released a paper that seeks to break the logjam One surrounding’ the of the paper s recurring question of how to fix the country’s economy. themes is the need to do something about the national albatross called state-owned enterprises (SOEs). I was surprised that one of the key entities — the SABC — did not merit a specific mention.
As the public broadcaster with a pervasive reach, the SABC’s role as a disseminator of information and a public educator cannot be underestimated. But like public broadcasters everywhere, the question of how it should be funded is a talking point.
The funding pendulum — swinging from comprehensive state funding to a plurality of sources — merits a mention in discussions of this nature.
In its current form the SABC depends on multiple funding sources that are collectively insufficient to keep it viable. Its practice of tossing a coin to decide who to pay on a monthly basis is unsustainable and reckless. Self-inflicted blunders and poor leadership have imperilled its ability to invest in content and infrastructure and, more recently, a blackout on local soccer matches was implemented. In seeking to mitigate this, the broadcaster has proposed an increase in licence fees.
The current fee of R265 a year is indeed too low and is subject to an extremely low collection rate. Simply increasing the fee based on the current model is therefore problematic. There is no doubt that discretionary payments of this nature work best in countries with a high culture of compliance, enforcement and consequence management.
With the exception of forcing payment at the point of acquisition of a TV set, the SABC has no instruments to enforce ongoing payments or even implement consequences for those who do not pay.
In seeking solutions aimed at facilitating sustainability for the SABC, the finance minister would be well advised to advocate for a one-off payment at the point of purchase. Such a payment can be the discounted value of the current fee based on the expected lifespan of a TV set. Based on annual TV sales, this ought to generate more income than the current model.
Crucially, it is time to acknowledge that the SABC is a public broadcaster and not merely a television broadcaster. Consequently, it ought to collect for all manner of devices that receive transmission. For example, every car and cellphone sold in SA that has a radio transmitter should be subject to a levy that compensates the SABC.
Given that the finance minister appears to have an appetite for alleviating the burden of funding SOEs and regulating the economy based on what its current structure is, rather than what it used to be, it is not inconceivable that the SABC could be funded.
However, if the minister’s utterances are to replicate the Chamberlain dilemma, the blackout witnessed by soccer fans will become a permanent feature of the SABC, to the detriment of us all.