The SABC couldn't cope with Black Friday as its TV licence server crashed; caused TV retailers losses in sales and TV-set buyers fuming.

The SABC couldn't cope with Black Friday last week with the public broadcaster's TV licence validation server that crashed, causing losses of TV set sales to retailers across the country and leading potential TV set buyers fuming and abandoning transactions.

Consumers who wanted to make use of special deals on the heavily discounted retail day known as Black Friday was left frustrated by the SABC and decided to abandoned sales and leave, causing losses to shops as the SABC's validation server buckled and was unable to process TV licence validations and issuing of new licences.

Consumers who want to buy a TV set and a new SABC TV licence or who want to add another TV set to an existing licence, must validate their TV licence number in shops. The SABC's TV licence server was however not capable with coping on Black Friday and timed out due to capacity problems, leaving consumers and retailers stranded.

The SABC said "the TV licence validation server was overwhelmed by the abnormal increase in validation requests from retailers due to the Black Friday deals which resulted in the server timing out between 07:00 and 10:30".

"We have upgraded the server capability to cater for the influx of validations and retailers were able to process online validations from 10:45".

The SABC said it's "apologising for any inconvenience experienced."

BREAKING. SABC TV licence required to get a set-top box for digital terrestrial television - even for the poorest, says head of DTT programme.

South African TV viewers will now likely have to provide a SABC TV licence to get an expensive set-top box (STB) required for digital terrestrial television (DTT) - even the poorest of the poor who won't get one of the 5 million free STBs government hand-outs without a valid licence.

It raises serious questions over how the government and broadcasters like the SABC want to complete the country's long-delayed switch-over from analogue to DTT - a process known as digital migration - in the department of communication's planned 18 to 24 months timeline once DTT is commercially launched if millions of TV households can't get a STB.

Millions of South African TV households, representing many more millions of viewers, don't have a valid licence for their TV sets and are not paying for an annual SABC TV licence.

It means that they will be locked out and barred from getting a STB and will eventually see their TV signals cut off and disappear once broadcasters like the SABC, e.tv and community TV stations switch off their analogue signals.

"We are looking at saying a television licence may well be required [for a STB]," said Solly Mokoetle, South Africa's head of the DTT programme.

He was a panelist at The New Age breakfast briefing on DTT which was held on Monday morning in Sandton.

While South Africa embarrassingly missed the 17 June international agreed to deadline to have completed the switch to DTT due to more than a decade of government ineptitude, Solly Mokoetle said on Monday that the qualifying criteria to get a free STB from the government - distributed through the South African Post Office - is at this point still being worked out.

According to the government's proposed DTT switch plans South Africa's poorest will first have to provide "proof" that they're poor.

Only households who can prove that they're "poor enough", something which will be a humiliating experience according to critics of the plan, will be able to get one of the 5 million STBs for free - if they have a SABC TV licence.

The STBs will cost other TV households around R700 to R800, while a new TV antenna for DTT at an additional cost will also be required in a lot of cases just so that people can continue watching the digitally transmitted version of the TV channels they've had before, as well as some new ones.

"We are still in the process of consulting to finalise the nitty-gritty details of this qualifying criteria. It should be a certain income level in a household. The cabinet policy is based on funding the indigent," said Solly Mokoetle.

"Does that [requirement of a SABC TV licence] discriminate against more of our people or not? The point however is that a television licence is a law in South Africa. So it is a requirement [for a STB]. Now, we will be looking at all of these factors as we move towards the distribution point."

Nobody on the panel could answer moderator Peter Ndoro's question of how the 5 million poor TV households receiving a free government STB will be prevented from selling that asset to get the money.

BREAKING. Pay more for your SABC TV licence - it's the right thing to do: SABC wants to raise TV licence fee again.

You're reading it here first. 

The SABC wants to raise the price of the annual SABC TV licence fee that all South African TV households have to pay.

"TV licences are an important part of our revenue stream," Tian Olivier, the acting SABC CEO told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Friday.

"In cash terms TV licences bring in about R1 billion a year. We will approach the department of communications to assist us with changes in the regulations and also a possible tariff increase to stay in line with the inflationary increase in the cost of collecting our licences," Tian Olivier said.

"To stand out in the clutter the SABC aims to maintain high quality content, distinct from commercial content, that is educational, editorially independent, universally accessible, culturally diverse, nation-building and resonates with our audiences," said Tian Olivier.

"The increases to our TV licence fees have always been inflation related to keep track of the cost of collecting the licence," Tian Olivier said in answer to a question from parliament. "It will probably go from the R265, six percent on that".

"The implementation of that would depend on approval by the minister of communications and we need about two months to implement it. The last increase that we had if I remember it correctly was in April, so we must probably work it out so that we don't have a period where some people are paying double increases".

"We must just synchronise when the previous SABC TV licence tariff increase was," Tian Olivier told parliament. It will not be more than inflation. We just ask for an inflation related increase".

Scrap TV licences says the South African National Consumer Union (Sancu) as a large number of TV owners don't pay.

The South African National Consumer Union (Sancu) is calling for the scrapping of TV licences which all consumers with a device capable of receiving TV signals are obliged to pay annually.

This is the second time in the past three years Sancu is calling for the scrapping of the practice whereby TV owners are forced to pay an annual licence fee.

Besides Britain where TV owners also have to pay an annual TV licence fee to fund the sterling BBC, South Africa is one of the only remaining countries in the world where a TV licence for watching television is mandated by the government through the Broadcasting Act.

The reality is that very few South Africans with TV sets actually pay their annual TV licence. Meanwhile the SABC spends millions trying to recoup outstanding licence fees from TV owners which eats into the income derived from TV licence fees.

The income from TV licences only amounts to 7% of the SABC's annual  total revenue. In 2011/2012 the SABC received R1,01 billion from TV licence fees - but that is a fraction of what the SABC would earn if all owners of a TV set actually paid an annual licence fee.

Only about one third of the TV sets in South Africa has a valid TV licence, while aggressive licence collection agencies who work on behalf of the SABC threaten to blacklist consumers who don't pay. The SABC's licence collection practices are currently under investigation by the National Consumer Commission.

Sancu has now renewed its call for TV licences to be phased out and scrapped. Currently TV owners have to cough up R250 a year for a domestic TV licence per household, R70 for a concessionary domestic licence and R250 per set for a business licence.

Only the SABC receives money from the TV licence, irrespective whether TV set owners use their television to watch pay-TV such as MultiChoice's DStv on On Digital Media's TopTV, e.tv, the proliferation of community TV stations within South Africa or just rent and watch DVD's.

According to the latest released Census 2011 results, 74,5% of households in South Africa indicated that they have at least one television in the home - about 10,7 million TV sets. Yet only about 4,7 actually pay a TV licence.

BREAKING. Government wants to scrap SABC TV licences

I got the news Thursday night while i attended the Channel O Awards and was THIS CLOSE to run out and write a story for the newspaper. But I waited until the next morning at 06:00.

The government - specifically the Department of Communications has a new proposed bill out, called the Public Services Broadcasting Bill. If it becomes law, it will repeal the Broadcasting Act of 1999.

The bill contains dramatic and far reaching changes that will mean a vast seachange and the biggest overhaul of public broadcasting in this country since the SABC switched on it's television signal in 1976.

Here's the MAJOR IMPLICATIONS about what government wants to do in the bill of 80 pages:

*Scrap TV licences immediately. Taxpayers should now contribute at least 1% of their personal income tax to fund the development of TV broadcasting in South Africa.

*Increased power by the minister of communications over the SABC, especially the SABC board.

*The creation of a so-called Public Services Broadcasting Fund (PSB) that will pay for public broadcasting (eg. the SABC).

*The creation of a brand-new International Broadcasting Services (IBS) division within the SABC and the transfer of channels like Channel Africa and SABC News International to this division. The IBS will have to adhere to South Africa's official foreign policy regarding Africa, in the matter of ''development, reconstruction, peace and stability".

*Making SABC News International available as a free TV channel to all South Africans, which currently has only limited satellite broadcasting capability.

*The creation of a new body called Local Content Advisory Body which will determine - and then advise the minister - on the amount and type of local TV content in the country and ''how that can be improved''.

*The establishment of a new Broadcasting and Signal distribution Museum.

*A new performance review system to measure the performance of the SABC board.

*Power to the minister to order investigations at the SABC, and the ability to ''replace or remove SABC board members''.

*The approval and creation of a number of specialist TV channels for South Africa - not necessarily by the SABC - that will focus on youth programming, ethnic documentary programming and nature documentary programming.
*Ordering more local TV content for all broadcasters in the country.

*The creation of regional TV channels by the SABC with money that provincial legislatures must contribute to.

*The creation of more TV channels, specifically by the SABC during the process of digital migration that include:
Youth
Health
Sport
Small business support
Parliamentary services
Interactive government information