Neither the SABC nor MultiChoice were willing to say what the details of the contract are nor what MultiChoice will be paying the SABC as South Africa's public broadcaster, choosing to keep the terms and financial numbers of the public-commercial deal secret.
Neither MultiChoice nor the SABC specified the duration of the new contract.
It's also not clear whether the new deal includes payment by MultiChoice for the SABC's SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 channels - something that the SABC is now demanding and that MultiChoice is adamant that it won't do.
South Africa's broadcasting regulations demand under so-called "must-carry" rules, that the public broadcaster's terrestrial TV channels must be carried on satellite pay-TV services to ensure wider access and public availability, but that these services in turn don't have to pay for these channels.
Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO, refused to give an answer to the question as to why the embattled and cash-strapped SABC doesn't want to be more transparent about the highly-controversial deal.
Under the deal the SABC as a public broadcaster uses its own resources to exclusively supply MultiChoice's DStv with the SABC News channel and the SABC Encore channel.
On Tuesday afternoon the SABC and MultiChoice in a joint statement announced that a new commercial channel carriage agreement was signed between the private company and the public broadcaster.
This means that the SABC News channel will continue since the SABC that has technically been insolvent for over a year is unable to run SABC News as a public TV channel without the influx of millions of rands from the Naspers-owned company.
MultiChoice and the SABC said that the SABC News and SABC Encore channels will continue to be broadcast on DStv and that the "SABC and MultiChoice believe that this agreement will give their relationship a new start".
The SABC specified that "the SABC archives, which the SABC uses to produce SABC Encore, remains the wholly-owned property of the SABC".
This is because the old 5-year deal was heavily criticised with controversy still swirling about how it came to be and why the SABC as a public broadcaster is doing deals with a private pay-TV company.
Claims have also been made that the SABC and MultiChoice have been colluding in terms of undue influence over the standards to be used in the country's digital terrestrial television (DTT) dispensation.
The new channel carriage contract, an extension of the existing one with added new stipulations, comes just days before the SABC News contract would have expired.
In the statement Madoda Mxakwe, SABC CEO, said "the SABC welcomes the new agreement with MultiChoice which will bring certainty to our viewers and our staff. The board and management of the SABC are satisfied that the agreement meets both the commercial and governance needs of the SABC. The SABC looks forward to delivering high-quality channels into the future."
Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice South Africa CEO, said "we are pleased to be able to continue to carry these channels on DStv. We have a long-standing relationship with the SABC and are happy that we have reached a mutually beneficial agreement. We look forward to continue working with the SABC to deliver great entertainment to our customers".
In an interview on SABC News, Madoda Mxakwe was asked why the SABC isn't willing to be open and transparent about the contract when there's been so much brand and reputational damage that had been inflicted on the SABC and MultiChoice.
Madoda Mxakwe declined to answer the actual question and said that through the MultiChoice contract extension, the private company is directly responsible for preventing job losses at the public broadcaster.
"It provides for us as the SABC the necessary certainty and stability, particularly to all of the SABC News staff who were quite anxious, quite understandably, as well as to the viewers who did not know what would happen at the end of this month".
Madoda Mxakwe said "this for us as the SABC, provides some of the required finances from a working capital point of view, but also from a revenue-generating point of view. But in terms of jobs I do think that it is important to highlight that from a news staff point of view, this agreement does provide the certainty that is required".
