The SABC is facing a critical financial crisis (again), with a reported funding gap of R7.03bn over the medium-term expenditure framework period. Despite slight improvements in audit outcomes, the broadcaster’s financial sustainability remains in jeopardy, as recently highlighted by the standing committee on public accounts.
This shortfall threatens the SABC’s ability to fulfil its public broadcasting mandate, which includes (at least in theory) providing diverse and informative content to all South Africans, in its variety of languages. The funding model, heavily reliant on declining TV licence fees and commercial revenue, is no longer viable. TV licences as a system is so archaic and regressive it’s almost funny — except that it punishes poor households the most and costs more to enforce than it recovers. In a world of fibre and 5G it’s about as sensible as a tax on cassette players.
It’s time to be blunt about the SABC. No amount of restructuring, tinkering or overhauls will fix what is fundamentally broken. The broadcaster is a relic of a bygone era, staggering from bailout to bailout. The only honest solution is full privatisation — not a partial sell-off, not a public-private partnership but a complete clean break through full privatisation. Anything less is wishful thinking and clinging to the dead ideological idea of a state broadcaster.
SA should not pretend the SABC can be reformed within its current shape. It’s had three decades to prove otherwise. The idea that we can somehow keep it alive through another round of government funding or board reshuffles is simply political theatre. Much like the TV viewing on offer at the SABC, we’ve seen this before and it ends the same way every time.
When I was in private legal practice I represented a number of actors with claims against the SABC, mostly unpaid fees for reruns of old shows and films they’d appeared in. These weren’t complex cases. The broadcaster had simply lost the contracts, or the invoices, or both. It wasn’t malice but pure administrative dysfunction, part of a broader pattern where the basics of doing business — such as paying artists or honouring agreements — seemed beyond the organisation.
What’s worse is that the “public broadcaster” can’t even meet it’s own internal payroll some months. If this were a private company it would have folded years ago. But because it’s state-owned it lingers on, propped up by public money and defended by sentimentalism about its imagined role in nation-building.
Post-1994 the SABC was meant to transform into an independent public broadcaster. That dream barely lasted a decade. Board appointments became political handouts for cadres, news coverage started toeing ideological lines and non-compliant journalists found themselves shown the door.
The SABC’s financial failure has consequences outside the broadcaster. It regularly fails to pay local content producers, it bungles sports broadcasting rights and it fudges its news programmes. Good people have tried to fix it. Some even made small dents. But the structure itself is too broken to salvage.
The digital age
The old justification for the SABC was that it ensured access to information in places where private media didn’t reach. That was true once. But SA isn’t in the 1980s any more. More than 95% of the population has mobile phones. Streaming, online news, podcasts ... these are where people go for content now, especially the young. This means the SABC isn’t just behind the curve but not even on the same graph.
Meanwhile, independent outlets are producing far more credible public interest journalism than the SABC has managed in years, and doing so without government subsidies, though some of these outlets are themselves struggling financially. But these platforms show that robust journalism doesn’t require state control. It needs a level playing field, editorial independence and a public that sees value in the work.
Increasingly, some of the most immediate, ground-level reporting comes not from state studios or even the independent platforms but from laymen reporters in communities posting on social media. And this gives the government a clue as to where public investment should shift. Not towards propping up a failing institution, but towards cheaper data, better broadband and a media environment where quality can compete and thrive.
Global lessons
When state broadcasters overseas have been privatised properly (fully, not halfway) the results have often been impressive. France’s TF1 tripled its revenue and became a market leader. Argentina’s Telefe held the top spot for two decades after its privatisation. These weren’t miracles or outliers. They were the result of unleashing competition and removing the dead hand of the state.
By contrast, the halfway houses (partial sales or partnerships) tend to fail. Russia’s Channel One kept the state in control and remained subsidy-hungry. Zambia’s TopStar deal turned into a debt trap. The Philippines tried to sell part of its broadcaster and ended up with layoffs, cancelled shows and eventual collapse. These cases all have a common thread, namely that trying to have it both ways ends up with the worst of both.
SA should learn from these missteps. If we sell off only a portion of the SABC we’ll keep the political meddling and the inefficiencies while chasing the illusion of reform. Investors will stay away. The public will lose what little trust it has left. The only real solution is complete privatisation.
Privatising the SABC doesn’t mean gutting public interest media. It means freeing up the space for it to grow on its own terms. The government’s role should shift from content producer to infrastructure enabler. Expand affordable data access. Support independent content creators through transparent grants. Create a regulatory environment that protects media freedom and diversity, not state dominance.
Let the market decide what sort of broadcaster South Africans actually want. Maybe a privatised SABC survives, maybe it doesn’t. But at least it will have to earn its audience, not demand it through state coercion. A truly democratic media landscape doesn’t need gatekeepers in Auckland Park. It needs competition, accountability and freedom.
The SABC isn’t too big to fail. It already has. We must let it go and see what else may grow in its place.
• Eloff, a writer and nonprofit executive, is a legal adviser to the mayor of Cape Town. He writes in his personal capacity.
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