After allegations in weekend newspaper reports that the SABC's SABC News (DStv 404) channel supplied to MultiChoice is actually a debilitating cash drain on the public broadcaster - despite MultiChoice paying the SABC hundreds of millions of rands - MultiChoice says it can't comment on it.
According to weekend reports a large part of the SABC's latest, and growing loss of R411 million for 2015/2016 can be attributed to the massive cost of news.
The cost of producing news was a whopping R876 million according to the SABC's 2015/2016 annual report.
The SABC and MultiChoice signed a contract for the SABC to supply the library channel SABC Encore and the 24-hour TV news channel SABC News to MultiChoice for the DStv satellite pay-TV platform.
The controversial SABC executive Hlaudi Motsoeneng signed the contract in July 2013 - although he had no SABC board mandate to negotiate the channels deal with MultiChoice and his deal were never approved by either the SABC board or the SABC's legal division.
MultiChoice was asked for comment and if MultiChoice is of the view that the transaction for the 2 TV channels are beneficial or detrimental to the SABC as insiders are alleging.
MultiChoice was asked what the duration of the contract is for the SABC to supply the SABC News channel to MultiChoice, and if MultiChoice feels it is the cause of ongoing SABC losses.
MultiChoice in response said "we can't comment on other organisations' financial matters".
