by Thinus Ferreira
South Africa's bloated and financially struggling public broadcaster on Tuesday told the country's parliament that it can no longer afford the prohibitive billions of rand in radio and TV signal distribution costs that the SABC is paying the parastatal Sentech, and that the SABC needs to abandon and move away from outdated digital terrestrial television (DTT) as soon as possible if it is to survive.
The SABC told parliament that if the broadcaster is forced to keep exorbitant signal distribution costs to Sentech that the SABC will collapse. It also said DTT is outdated technology and that the SABC needs to dump it as soon as possible if the broadcaster is to survive.
The SABC told parliament that DTT) is outdated for South Africa and that investing any further money into it would be "throwing money into the wind".
South Africa's long-delayed, chaotic and corruption-filled digital migration process has been fraught with problems, little progress and hundreds of millions of rands wasted.
The SABC told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Tuesday morning that its signal distribution costs paid to Sentech are the South African public broadcaster's second-largest expense after its massive salaries and wage bill.
"Over the past 5 years we've spent over R3.2 billion on paying Sentech, and if you continue like this, the SABC will not be sustainable," Ian Plaatjes, the SABC chief operations officer (COO) told parliament.
"If we digitise 100% and look over the next 5 years, we will be spending R3.5 billion on signal distribution to Sentech," he said.
"If we were to use private, third-party signal distribution suppliers outside of Sentech, we would actually be making a 94% saving. That is a huge amount to our bottom-line. That is about R400 million that we could utilise for content."
'We do not have a strategy to use third-party providers outside of Sentech as of yet," he said "but the price has to be right. It can’t be 100 times the price our competitors are paying out there."
Ian Plaatjes explained how it costs the SABC much more per capita to get its radio and TV signals to rural and remote areas through using Sentech and how it makes no sense since the SABC has to pay much more to reach a SABC listener or viewer than what they pay in a SABC TV Licence fee.
"In Makhanda, compared to Johannesburg - if you look at the cost we pay to Sentech, and this is just analogue signal distribution, it's R9 million. If you look at Johannesburg it's R10 million."
"If you look at the cost per user - because there's only 27 000, the cost per viewer is R335, whereas in Johannesburg because the viewers are 7.8 million, the cost per viewer comes down to R1.30."
"Digital terrestrial television (DTT) for Makhanda if the SABC were to roll it out there would be R150 per viewer, whereas if we were to use a satellite direct-to-home (DTH) solution, it would come down to R1.60 per viewer. It's a no-brainer about which technology we would then choose."
"If we look at Johannesburg, and other metropolitan areas, the analogue is R1.30 but if we were to use a DTT solution, it comes down to only 70c per viewer. Logic tells you that for metropolitan areas we would use a DTT solution. So by no means are we saying that we must throw DTT out."
"When DTT was planned 15 years ago, it was the best technology at that point in time. But to throw any money at it now, would be throwing money into the wind," Ian Plaatjes says.
"The whole world is moving off of DTT and has a strategy for moving off DTT. The SABC certainly must do the same if we are to survive."
"If we were to use a third-party signal distributor service provide outside of Sentech, it would be R80c per viewer."
"Fifteen years after we started deploying DTT we have not utilised that time very well and we have not rolled out the supporting set-top boxes that goes with the technology."
"There isn't one township that you will find in the area at one dwelling more than one satellite TV dish. That means that the argument of using DTT in high-density areas is no longer valid. When it comes to DTH there is 100% coverage in South Africa."
"What needs to happen in regards to the cost we'repaying to Sentech which is close to R1 billion per year has to be halved for the sustainability of the SABC," Ian Plaatjes says.
