Television licence tariff increase and new regulations

New regulations in terms of the Broadcasting Act, No 4 of 1999, as amended, were approved by the Minister of Communications and promulgated in Government Gazette no 25582 of 13 October 2003. The regulations, effective as from 1 January 2004, provide for the tariff increases as well as for several categories of television licences. Other major areas of change are: the qualifying conditions for a concessionary TV licence, exemption from payment of licence fees, reporting obligations for businesses, dealers and lessors, and clearer guidelines for TV licence notifications to the SABC.

The SABC has not increased TV licence tariffs for more than five years. The previous increase (a 10% hike, from R189.00 to R208.00 per annum) was in November 1998. The Corporation is unaware of any other service or commodity of which the price has remained unchanged for so long. Had inflation-related tariff increases been implemented since 1998 the licence fee would now have been some R90.00 higher than is currently the case. Maintaining the tariffs at the 1998 level for the past five years has had a compound devaluation effect of approximately 35% on the SABC's TV licence revenue.

Changes to the regulations were necessitated by the need to bring them into line with the new Broadcasting Act, the Constitution and recent technological developments. The regulations have been made more easily understandable and user-friendly, discriminatory provisions have been eliminated and potential loopholes have been closed by means of new definitions and qualifying conditions. Implementation and enforcement of the new legislation will enable the SABC to put its collection and management of television licence fees on a stronger commercial basis.

The SABC aims to improve its revenue generation from TV licences by, inter alia, clamping down on piracy through ongoing and intensified projects to collect bad debt, trace pirate viewers and institute legal action against persistent defaulters. As a further means of combating pirate viewing, strict reporting obligations on TV licence-related matters will in future apply to dealers, businesses and lessors. Should they fail to comply they would lay themselves open to heavy fines. For instance, a dealer selling a TV set to an unlicensed purchaser may be fined between R3 000 and R10 000 for every set so sold.

In terms of the Broadcasting Act and Regulations, no person may have a television set in his possession or use it without a valid (i e fully paid-up) TV licence. A television licence is not a service contract between a licence holder and the SABC, and viewers remain liable for TV licences no matter which broadcaster's programmes they watch. What a TV set is used for, or whether it is used at all, makes no difference to the legal liability for payment of television licence fees.

The SABC, as South Africa's national broadcaster, receives television licence revenue to enable it to provide radio and television programmes in line with its public service mandate. That includes broadcasting in all eleven official languages, offering formal and informal educational programmes, and providing a dedicated full-spectrum cultural radio station for each of the country's language groups.

The SABC will be embarking on an extensive awareness and communication campaign aimed at informing and educating the public on the implications of the new television licence legislation. The SABC will continue to incentivise and add value for loyal licence holders.