The SABC wants to raise the price of the annual SABC TV licence fee that all South African TV households have to pay.
"TV licences are an important part of our revenue stream," Tian Olivier, the acting SABC CEO told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Friday.
"In cash terms TV licences bring in about R1 billion a year. We will approach the department of communications to assist us with changes in the regulations and also a possible tariff increase to stay in line with the inflationary increase in the cost of collecting our licences," Tian Olivier said.
"To stand out in the clutter the SABC aims to maintain high quality content, distinct from commercial content, that is educational, editorially independent, universally accessible, culturally diverse, nation-building and resonates with our audiences," said Tian Olivier.
"The increases to our TV licence fees have always been inflation related to keep track of the cost of collecting the licence," Tian Olivier said in answer to a question from parliament. "It will probably go from the R265, six percent on that".
"The implementation of that would depend on approval by the minister of communications and we need about two months to implement it. The last increase that we had if I remember it correctly was in April, so we must probably work it out so that we don't have a period where some people are paying double increases".
"We must just synchronise when the previous SABC TV licence tariff increase was," Tian Olivier told parliament. It will not be more than inflation. We just ask for an inflation related increase".
