‘Mr TV’ dreamt big when he brought first sets to our shores 50 years ago
● Teljoy celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, and though it’s now an online retailer that sells a range of goods, its founder, Theo Rutstein, is credited as the man who first brought TV sets to SA.
Rutstein started Teljoy in 1969, its name reflecting his vision for the future as one with TVs, which were readily available in many other countries, but not in SA.
It was a time when the apartheid government was fearful it would not be able to control the dissemination of information, which was crucial to the way it ran the country.
Rutstein had listened to the seminal landing on the moon on the radio in 1969 along with millions of others. He was aware that around the world viewers would be glued to TVs, not yet available in SA. But he knew it was only a matter of time before television would come here.
With that in mind, he went to the UK to figure out what the TV business was about.
He discovered the big TV companies were rental companies. “When I registered the company and started advertising televisions in the country we had no idea how long it would take until we could actually deliver the product to our customers,” says Rutstein.
His company set up a TV rental business and ran ads in the major newspapers, guaranteeing subscribers would be able to watch the first broadcast — whenever it would be. It set off something of a frenzy and in three weeks the company had 30,000 contracts.
“It spurred a lot of discussion and eventually the government was taking pressure. I was called off to parliament and Albert Hertzog, then minister of posts and telegraphs, asked me about it.
“They defused this by setting up a commission of inquiry, which took five years.” During that time, pressure had mounted and TV was introduced to the country in 1974.
There were 50 applicants to manufacture TV sets and the government said it would choose only five, so Teljoy teamed up with Telefunken.
By the time approval had been given, the business had more than 160,000 customers on board. Teljoy supplied the TVs. Rutstein says people used to watch the test pattern before programming was scheduled. “For a long time people would moan that the test pattern wasn’t clear.”
At first it cost R39 a month for a 51cm TV set, basically a rand a day.
The founders’ initial investment was about R300,000, later increased to R600,000, but additional investment was needed — R40m, which the banks invested.
The company grew to a few hundred thousand subscribers, but over time realised it needed to diversify because people were not renting TV sets but buying them.
Rutstein then discovered cellphones and went to the UK again to explore another business opportunity.
“We were quite good at managing subscribers, good at granting credit and collecting money. A guy riding a bicycle using his cellphone nearly knocked me over.”
Teljoy ended up as a primary service provider to Vodacom and became the largest cellular service provider in the country.
It had a significant part of the Vodacom subscriber base, which it sold to the cellphone operator in 1996. Teljoy had to delist at that point because unlisted Vodacom could not own a listed entity. Teljoy had originally listed in 1986.
Cellphones were Teljoy’s growth platform after TV.
It also had a brief foray into solar electricity, but that didn’t work out. It was also one of the first retailers to go online.
When it first left physical stores there was a big drop in consumers, but over time the company advanced way ahead of where it had been before going online.
Teljoy is still in business and profitable, says Rutstein, who is no longer chairman but remains a strategic adviser.
It’s now an online retailer, stocking appliances, electronics and furniture. “I see us as a product-based consumer company with very unique benefits, these being flexibility that enables customers to upgrade, downgrade or terminate, with in-home service.”