MultiChoice will help to digitise the SABC's archive in the same way the satellite pay-TV platform has digitised the ANC's archives for that political party.
MultiChoice made the announcement at the launch event on Thursday afternoon of the SABC's second attempt at establishing a 24-hour TV news channel, the SABC News channel which went live at 18:00 on Thursday evening on MultiChoice's DStv channel 404.
The SABC's SABC News International TV news channel was launched in July 2007 by the then news boss Snuki Zikalala but quickly became an albatross for the struggling public broadcaster.
Amidst a huge cash drain of millions of rands the channel which was shown on DStv was closed down three years later at the end of March 2010 after the SABC came close to the brink of financial collapse in 2009.
The private pay-TV operator MultiChoice is now giving the SABC as a public broadcaster more than half a billion rand over the next few years to run the SABC News channel as part of a new contract - up from the R80 million MultiChoice would have given the SABC over three years as part of a previous, earlier deal to set up the news channel which was scuppered.
At the launch event on Thursday Imtiaz Patel, group CEO of MultiChoice South Africa, said that the pay-TV giant "will be further assisting the SABC in digitising some of their library material as we did the ANC archives, in this way continuing to assist in preserving our country's collective history."
About the SABC News channel deal worth hundreds of millions, Imtiaz Patel said "this deal further enhances an already strong relationship and cooperation with the SABC".