What Happened To SABC's Indigenous News Channel, SABC eKhaya?

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During the year, the public broadcaster promised to unveil the highly anticipated news brand, SABC eKhaya. A spinoff to the current SABC News channel seen on MultiChoice's DStv, the channel would be broadcast in all 11 South African languages was slated for April 2023. 

We were told by sources that the channel had a soft launch so to better understand this we turn to SABC Sport. The channel was active almost a year or so before it was added to the Openview platform and TelkomOne (now SABC+) and similar to SABC Sport it's not available on SABC+.

If we had to guess, the public broadcaster is probably looking to get the channel on MultiChoice's DStv or eMedia Investments' Openview. We assume they want to give this channel as much exposure as seen with SABC Sport which became the top 10 channels on Openview.

Not much marketing was put into SABC Sport but the channel managed to defy all odds and the same outcome could be expected for SABC eKhaya should it not exclusively to DTT and streaming.

From what we understand they want to make it a leading brand similar to SABC News or it's initial offering at the time, SABC Parliament. For now, the channel will serve as a catch-up to the current offering seen on SABC 1-3 and overtime they could fiddle around with the repeats.

It's currently unknown whether the public broadcaster plans to market SABC eKhaya or similar to SABC Sport wait until they can get more platforms onto the concept.

Sentech To Launch Streaming Platform To Rival SABC+

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The SABC is Sentech’s biggest client — by far. But that’s not stopping the state-owned broadcast signal distributor from formulating plans to rival the public broadcaster in streaming services.

While the SABC has been without a board for several months, Sentech has been making plans to launch what appears will be a competitor to SABC+, the streaming service launched by the public broadcaster late last year when it took over management and operation of Telkom One, a joint venture it had with Telkom.

News of Sentech’s plans to offer a so-called OTT service (over the top — industry jargon for streaming) emerged in parliament on Wednesday when communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the company will “soon launch a homegrown OTT platform that will be anchored by Nemisa but which will be available to other content producers”. Nemisa is a state-owned non-profit in Ntshavheni’s portfolio that focuses on technology education, including in multimedia production.

The launch plans come amid growing tension between the SABC and Sentech over signal carriage fees.

“Our goal is to eventually make this platform the home for quality films, documentaries and children’s stories, in addition to SABC+,” the minister told MPs.

Sentech plans to launch the OTT platform in the first quarter of the 2024 financial year – that’s sometime between March and May this calendar year. A Sentech spokeswoman was on leave and not immediately available to comment further on the platform and its planned content offerings.

The launch plans come amid growing tension between the SABC and Sentech over the signal carriage fees the latter charges the former to distribute its terrestrial channels to South African audiences.

The SABC and its commercial free-to-air rival e.tv last year accused the broadcasting signal distributor of excessive pricing and anticompetitive behaviour.

Formal submissions
Their broadsides against the state-owned enterprise were included in formal submissions to communications regulator Icasa, in which they called for urgent regulatory interventions in the signal distribution market to deal with alleged monopolistic abuses by Sentech.

The submissions form part of a market inquiry by Icasa into the signal distribution services market. Sentech has asked that the regulator’s discussion document be withdrawn because, among other reasons, updated legislation to govern audiovisual services is in development and Icasa’s investigations shouldn’t pre-empt these potential policy changes.

E.tv parent eMedia Investments said in its submission to Icasa that it is “deeply concerned at the fact that the issues relating to significant market power in relation to signal distribution services have been ignored for decades”.

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“This is despite pleas by the broadcasters that the market needed urgent regulation. Indeed, Icasa recognised as far back as 2010 that there was an urgent need to regulate the market due to Sentech’s undisputed dominance,” eMedia said. “Yet Icasa has taken no steps in this regard… All this has been to the detriment of broadcasters and caused them financial harm.”

The SABC also strongly criticised Sentech’s tariffs and behaviour, describing them as “not appropriate or correct”. It said its concerns led to the creation of a “chart of accounts project” at the public broadcaster to determine the fairness or otherwise of Sentech’s fees.

“The details of the various costs per service and per transmission site have been requested from Sentech with the objective of understanding how the structure of the cost for each service was derived. Sentech has not been cooperative in this regard for the past two years,” the public broadcaster alleged in its submission.

The SABC also filed a complaint against Sentech at the Competition Commission in 2021, in which it accused the signal distributor of “unfair and anticompetitive pricing”. 

Reviewing Major Changes Coming Soon To The SABC

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Last month, the public broadcaster was all buzz hosting a last minute showcase where they transitioned to video entertainment announcing further content for their current channels on top of launching SABC+ in place of the former TelkomOne streaming service.

Of course, what remains absent is the two entertainment channels announced in partnership with eMedia Investments last year. Just like SABC+, sources mention that those channels had already entered final stages a while back.

Honestly, it doesn't appear that they'll be anything time soon but with these recent adjustments. It's possible that they'll likely bring them up in the near future or as soon as most of these developments are dealt with.

As mentioned, the SABC has shared a couple of things in which we want to brief everyone on:

* The public broadcaster is heading for another loss making year with R608 million which has just tripled from last year R201 million.
* They failed to hit their targets in terms of commissioning, producing and broadcasting fresh content with most of the blows going onto SABC 1. All 3 channels target 20% of which the top channel reaches 4% with the second channel 14% and least watched 9%.
* The SABC is expected to make a chunk of cash through their newly launched streaming service, SABC+. R6 million in one quarter alongside R31.5 million in the next quarter.
* The revenue for their 3 channels has been negatively impacted following the cancellation of analogue signals.
* SABC+ has about 15000 signups on a daily basis can't say it's surprising considering that they have the most accessible channels in South Africa.
* A new loyalty programme might be in works the aim is to boost the number of TV Licence payers.
* Still bickering want MultiChoice to pay for their 3 channels although other outlets like Openview view them freely.
* A budget for their channels had been shared with the media. From what's known R468 million had been budgeted for which 218 million is spent and R665 million is earned on SABC 1, R141 million is spent and R199 million earned on SABC 2 and lastly R69 million is spent and R79 million is earned on SABC 1.
* SABC 1 will focus more on sourcing youth based content while SABC 2 transitions to current affairs and news.
* They'll be cutting back on the amount of social media handles we assume that they are also referring to shows like The Epic Hangout which too has a social page.
* A cutback on repeats especially on primetime with the axing of non-performing content. We assume The Estate will be saved despite primetime not being one of the top 20 shows on SABC 3.
* Uzalo remains on SABC 1 and Muvhango remains on SABC 2 - remember how the public broadcaster repeated shows on multiple channels well they'll put a stop to that meaning each primary show will air on their primary channel with SABC+ also filling that gap.
* The public broadcaster in partnership with SABC News is trying to find alternatives to the cancelled Special Assignment on SABC 3.