by Thinus Ferreira
The South African public broadcaster has had to delay the launch of its own video streaming service but now plans to do so from September and during the third quarter of this year – with the SABC that will also launch new TV channels and promising "compelling new content" while it's drastically shaking up the way that it's acquiring content for its existing and planned TV channels.
The SABC also admitted publicly for the first time that the government's drastic province-by-province switch-off of analogue transmitters in the country’s long-delayed digital migation process to digital terrestrial television (DTT) is damaging and adding to the SABC's TV audience losses as viewers who haven’t yet switched over are disappearing from the existing TAMS ratings system when they can no longer access TV signals and watch public television.
eMedia last year warned that the government’s drastic shutdown of transmitters will negatively impact ratings and in turn the advertising revenue of broadcasters like e.tv and the SABC.
The SABC - late to launch its own over-the-top (OTT) video streaming service in South Africa - previously said that it would be launching its own streamer before the end of this financial year, ending 31 March 2022.
This has now been pushed to the third quarter of 2022 into the broadcaster’s next financial year. The SABC says that with the launch of its streamer it will also debut new SABC TV channels which will be carried on its streaming services, together with existing ones.
Yolande van Biljon, SABC CFO, told parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (SCOPA) that the SABC’s revenue decline is driven by the migration of audiences from linear television to digital platforms.
“In our new financial year, our focus shifts to putting measures in place to ensure we generate revenue from the digital platforms. There are of course our partnerships with Telkom and eMedia and the likes which also provides us access to their platforms that are additional platforms where we are able to generate revenue from."
Ian Plaatjes, SABC COO, said "the decline in audience has a direct impact on the decline in advertising revenue".
"The decline in audience is multi-causational – the global trend that there is. There’s not much we can do about that. There is an impact on the analogue switch-off but we are managing that with the department of communications and digital technologies."
SABC moving into the digital space
Ian Plaatjes said that the SABC now plans to launch the public broadcaster's own video streaming service, similar to the BBC's iPlayer, by the third quarter of this year and that a big driver of audience loss for the SABC is audience migration to digital.
"Right now we do not have our own digital platform. We have gone to market and are in the final stages of testing the responses of that and we will have our own over-the-top (OTT) platform in the market by the third quarter of the next financial year."
"What that means is we're going to be launching additional channels within the new financial year but we are also changing the process of acquiring content for our channels – we are optimising that. It's a big game-changer. You will see a lot more compelling content coming through on our existing platforms but also on the new channels that we are going to be launching that will also be available on our OTT platform."
"We will be aggressively playing in the digital space," Ian Plaatjes said.
He said that the SABC started testing the software on Tuesday this week that would allow the broadcaster to commercialise its own streamer's platform as well as the third-party platforms it is using.
"We will be using it as a pilot phase for this month and will go live from next month. So for the first time, we will start off a financial year where we have the ability to monetise our digital platforms as well."
The South African public broadcaster has had to delay the launch of its own video streaming service but now plans to do so from September and during the third quarter of this year – with the SABC that will also launch new TV channels and promising "compelling new content" while it's drastically shaking up the way that it's acquiring content for its existing and planned TV channels.
The SABC also admitted publicly for the first time that the government's drastic province-by-province switch-off of analogue transmitters in the country’s long-delayed digital migation process to digital terrestrial television (DTT) is damaging and adding to the SABC's TV audience losses as viewers who haven’t yet switched over are disappearing from the existing TAMS ratings system when they can no longer access TV signals and watch public television.
eMedia last year warned that the government’s drastic shutdown of transmitters will negatively impact ratings and in turn the advertising revenue of broadcasters like e.tv and the SABC.
The SABC - late to launch its own over-the-top (OTT) video streaming service in South Africa - previously said that it would be launching its own streamer before the end of this financial year, ending 31 March 2022.
This has now been pushed to the third quarter of 2022 into the broadcaster’s next financial year. The SABC says that with the launch of its streamer it will also debut new SABC TV channels which will be carried on its streaming services, together with existing ones.
Yolande van Biljon, SABC CFO, told parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (SCOPA) that the SABC’s revenue decline is driven by the migration of audiences from linear television to digital platforms.
“In our new financial year, our focus shifts to putting measures in place to ensure we generate revenue from the digital platforms. There are of course our partnerships with Telkom and eMedia and the likes which also provides us access to their platforms that are additional platforms where we are able to generate revenue from."
Ian Plaatjes, SABC COO, said "the decline in audience has a direct impact on the decline in advertising revenue".
"The decline in audience is multi-causational – the global trend that there is. There’s not much we can do about that. There is an impact on the analogue switch-off but we are managing that with the department of communications and digital technologies."
SABC moving into the digital space
Ian Plaatjes said that the SABC now plans to launch the public broadcaster's own video streaming service, similar to the BBC's iPlayer, by the third quarter of this year and that a big driver of audience loss for the SABC is audience migration to digital.
"Right now we do not have our own digital platform. We have gone to market and are in the final stages of testing the responses of that and we will have our own over-the-top (OTT) platform in the market by the third quarter of the next financial year."
"What that means is we're going to be launching additional channels within the new financial year but we are also changing the process of acquiring content for our channels – we are optimising that. It's a big game-changer. You will see a lot more compelling content coming through on our existing platforms but also on the new channels that we are going to be launching that will also be available on our OTT platform."
"We will be aggressively playing in the digital space," Ian Plaatjes said.
He said that the SABC started testing the software on Tuesday this week that would allow the broadcaster to commercialise its own streamer's platform as well as the third-party platforms it is using.
"We will be using it as a pilot phase for this month and will go live from next month. So for the first time, we will start off a financial year where we have the ability to monetise our digital platforms as well."
