Cape Town Television (CTV) makes shocking revelations to the broadcasting regulator about how all of South Africa's community TV stations are dependent on money from the pay-TV giant, MultiChoice, for their survival.

Cape Town TV (CTV) is shocking South Africa's TV industry in a submission to the broadcasting regulator, with eye-popping revelations about the degree to which community TV stations have all become dependent for their live blood on feeding off of MultiChoice for its financial survival, including channel carriage for ratings and infrastructure support.

And they're desperate for more.

Community TV channels in South Africa are battling a persistent existential crisis and they want the broadcasting regulator to create and introduce fixed formal rules to ensure that MultiChoice will support and give money to the community TV stations.

The Cape Town community TV channel, in its written submission to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) detailed the extend to which community TV stations, supposed to serve and be sustained by their respective city and regional viewers, have in a sense become dotted little MultiChoice TV outposts across the country - community channels that are not supposed to be commercialised, but getting money from a pay-TV business.

Community TV stations are now heavily dependent on the Naspers pay-TV giant for literally millions in financial support and infrastructure upgrades - and they gladly take it just to survive.

It does however raise serious questions about the degree to which community television stations in South Africa are really independent, and able to function independently, when their financial positions and operational existence is so largely tied to MultiChoice pumping millions of rand into these stations - as well as dictating terms in some stifling contract stipulations that their audiences are blissfully unaware of.

Icasa on Monday started a week-long session of oral hearings in Johannesburg as part of a yet another new inquiry by the regulator about subscription television broadcasting services, or in layman's terms "pay-TV" in South Africa.

Icasa wants to try and find out how to possibly better regulate South Africa's pay-TV industry where Naspers' MultiChoice, although not enjoying a monopoly, dominates the market with its DStv satellite pay-TV service with brands like SuperSport and M-Net that have the cash and willingness to scoop up premium international entertainment and local and international sports rights, often with exclusive licensing and broadcasting window contracts.

Icasa already received written presentations from the SABC, South African Rugby, South African Cricket, e.tv, the Premier Soccer League (PSL), Econet Media's Kwese TV, Vodacom, MTV, Liquid Telecom, the Association of Community TV in South Africa (ACT-SA), Cape Town TV (CTV), Deukom, Cell C, Telkom, as well as a joint submission by the Support Public Broadcasting (SOS Coalition) and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA).

Several of these current and wannabe broadcasting sphere players as well as organisations are also be making oral presentations throughout this week.

CTV written submission - deliberately or unintentionally - rips the veil off of the extremely precarious position that community TV in South Africa finds itself in.

The submission paints a picture of just how horrifically bad and tenuous the existence of community TV channels are and who are to a large (and unhealthy) degree dependent on not just money from MultiChoice, but also infrastructure help and to lift ratings and increase audience reach through channel carriage.


Community TV in SA no longer able to survive without DStv

CTV that began broadcasting in September 2008 and has been carried on DStv since 2012, says in its submission that "all of the licensed community TV channels in South Africa are carried on MultiChoice's DStv platform and rely on this carriage to sustain their audience numbers".

"Carriage on national pay-TV platforms is essential to the survival of the community TV channels in the current broadcasting environment and consequently there must be a 'must carry, must pay' obligation on MultiChoice to carry community channels."

The irony is this: While community TV stations are supposed to broadcast to their communities in cities and provinces, because of their channels' carriage on MultiChoice, the majority audience share of community TV stations is on DStv.

It means that people watch community TV channels not through terrestrial TV means but as a channel through and on DStv.

"Unfortunately DStv has been allowed to become so dominant in South Africa today, that it is simply not possible for free-to-air broadcasters to survive on free-to-air distribution alone," says CTV.


Community TV channels being on DStv 'essential to their survival'
In shocking viewership figures, CTV's submission includes ratings data from January 2017, showing just how many DStv subscribers are watching community TV channels not on a free-to-air basis, but on DStv.


January 2017
Channel                         BayTV       Cape Town TV   Soweto TV    Tshwane TV    1KZN TV
National (all platforms)  2 836 029      2 723 684             6 587 924         2 902 519          3 832 200
DStv                                    2 696 806       2 188 519             4 168 855         2 520 315          3 489 094
Free-to-air                              139 223         535 165              2 419 069            382 204             343 106
Percentage DStv                 95.5%              80.35%               63.28%             86.83%          91.05%


It clearly shows that all community TV stations in South Africa gained the majority of their viewership from their presence on MultiChoice's DStv. Some channels have over 90% of their audience solely on, and coming from, DStv.

"It is important to note that in this context, the presence of community channels on the national platform provided by DStv is essential to their survival," says CTV in its submission.


MultiChoice's infrastructure help

CTV says "MultiChoice has been spending large amounts of money on building infrastructure for the community channels, although this spend has been uneven and some channels have benefited more than others".

CTV reveals in its submission that MultiChoice's spending spree on community TV channels kicked off in 2014 when Naspers' pay-TV operator gave R5 million for the construction of a Final Control Centre for Bay TV in Port Elizabeth when that channel was still licensed as a free-to-air community channel.

"Bay TV subsequently lost its terrestrial broadcast licence and is now carried only on DStv," says CTV.

"MultiChoice has also invested heavily in Zallywood's Tshwane TV and 1KZN TV; we do not know the extent of its involvement with Soweto TV."

"MultiChoice has also donated equipment and is funding the development of studio and broadcasting infrastructure at Cape Town TV; and MultiChoice pays for the fibre link which carries Cape Town TV's broadcast signal to Johannesburg for ingest and broadcast on the DStv platform."

MultiChoice has also given its Diski Challenge soccer matches to community broadcasters unders its corporate social investment (CSI) banner with community TV channels that are allowed to broadcast these matches if they want, at their own discretion.


MultiChoice's carriage contract for CTV has limiting stipulations

CTV reveals in its submission to Icasa that from 2012 to 2017 the contract between MultiChoice and Cape Town TV carried a clause which prevented CTV from being carried on any other pay-TV platform, like for instance StarSat as a community TV station.

CTV says it "was forced to accede to this provision because it would not be viable for it to lose its DStv audience while the other pay-TV providers occupied such a miniscule segment of the market".

Cape Town TV says that it is in the process of negotiating a new contract with MultiChoice, with MultiChoice that has "offered terms" such as "deletion of the exclusivity clause which prevented carriage of Cape Town TV on other pay-TV platforms".

This two-sided sword however, comes with another downside.

CTV says MultiChoice would then as (b) prohibit CTV from "from advertising that it is carried on other pay-TV or any digital, online platform, should it be so carried, on the DStv platform; (c) that MultiChoice will pay Cape Town TV an annual fee of R1 million for its carriage on the DStv platform; and (d) MultiChoice will also pay for the fibre link that carries the Cape Town TV signal from Cape Town to Johannesburg".

CTV told Icasa that "Cape Town TV believes that point (b) will have negative consequences for its ability to trade in the online space and is consequently arguing that this clause be altered to allow for cross-channel advertising."


CTV: MultiChoice must pay community TV - and it should be enforced

CTV says that "in addition to the above negotiations around contractual arrangements between MultiChoice and Cape Town TV, MultiChoice has indicated that it intends to standardise its contributions to community television channels".

"We assume that this means that MultiChoice will spend equal amounts on all of the community channels that it carries."

"The above-mentioned interactions indicate that MultiChoice is both carrying SA's community channels on its DStv platform and paying and/or supporting them through financial and other contributions."

"We believe this is overall a positive feature of the broadcast environment; however this support is purely at the discretion of MultiChoice and we believe that regulatory enforcement of this situation by ICASA will secure the sustainability of the community channels going forward."

CTV says "with regard to monetary contributions from MultiChoice to the community channels, we believe this should be independently regulated by Icasa and not left to the discretion of MultiChoice".

"Icasa should arrive at a formula for calculating the amount which DStv pays to community channels in exchange for their carriage on the platform, their concomitant appeal to audiences on this platform and their promotion of the DStv platform on the community channels, together with MultiChoice's CSI obligations."


Concerns over possible pay-community TV

CTV tells Icasa that it is worried over the Association of Community TV South Africa (ACT-SA) that  supports the possible introduction of pay-community TV stations in South Africa and that such a thing would "commercialise" the community TV sector even more.

"It's concerning that ACT-SA called for the licensing of subscription community television services which would be 'provided through satellite, cable or any other technology'. We believe that this aspect of the ACT-SA submission is aimed not only at further commercialising the sector, but that it refers to the initiation of commercial local channels on DStv which compete directly in this same space with the free-to-air community channels."

"This is occurring through the channel authorisation procedure whereby Icasa is called upon to authorise new channels on the pay-TV platforms."

"A case in point is that of Gau-TV, a channel owned by the Zallywood company that runs Tshwane TV, and which competes directly with Soweto TV," says CTV.

CTV says "ICASA must pay more attention to its channel authorisation process with a view to minimizing unfair competition between local channels on DStv".


ALSO READ: e.tv warns South Africa's broadcasting regulator, Icasa, that the free-to-air broadcasting sector in the country is under threat and needs urgent protection as a new inquiry into SA's pay-TV market kicks off.

BREAKING. MultiChoice adds Tshwane TV to DStv; Cape Town Television (CTV) will be added to DStv from September.

The South African community TV stations Tshwane TV (TTV) (DStv 262) and Cape Town Television (CTV) (DStv 263) are both joining MultiChoice and are being added to the DStv platform as new nationally available television stations.

Tshwane TV will be added to DStv from Tuesday 9 July on channel 262 and CTV will be added to DStv from September on channel 263, giving both these South African television stations a national, and much wider footprint.

The addition of the two further local community TV channels form part of MultiChoice's programming strategy to provide more local South African television content for the DStv pay-TV platform.

DStv already provides South African viewers with three community television stations, Soweto TV (DStv 251), Bay TV (DStv 260) from Port Elizabeth, and 1 KZN (DStv 261).

All three are all producing and broadcasting local content and regional news for several hours per day and which are slowly but surely strengthening the firmament which is South Africa's local television production industry.

"Our goal has been to establish an independent and sustainable community television station," says Ruth Phume, Tshwane TV station manager. "One of our initial objectives was to increase our geographical reach and viewership through a partnership with existing broadcasters. We are delighted that we have achieved this through our agreement with DStv."

"We are delighted to launch Tshwane TV on DStv. The addition of this channel strengthens our local content offering on DStv," says Robyn Smith, MultiChoice's content manager.

Tshwane TV has 6 hours of primetime viewing daily from 18:00 to midnight; a mix of locally-produced and international programmes in 7 different languages, English, Afrikaans, Setswana, Sepedi, Venda, Tsonga and Zulu.

"September is a fitting date for Cape Town Television's broadcast expansion because it will be exactly five years old when it launches on the second frequency and on DStv," says Karen Thorne, CTV station manager.

The Cape Town community television station in September will have a stronger terrestrial channel signal when it adds a second terrestrial frequency after approval from South Africa's broadcasting regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).

Besides channel 67, CTV is also getting channel 32 lower in the available spectrum which means that more Capetonians will be able to pick up Cape Town Television's free-to-air signal easier with an aerial.

Regarding the addition to MultiChoice's DStv, CTV which is refreshing its look with new on-air branding says its wider availability to viewers will "be a breath of fresh air in the media landscape, which is dominated by conventional and commercially-dominated TV channels" in South Africa.

"CTV's programming promotes debate and creates a rare space for authentic voices to come through in a sea of media mediocrity."

"This is a great step forward for Cape Town Television as the channel will be reaching many more viewers and it will be accessible both nationally and in neighbouring states," says Karen Thorne. "We see this as a great opportunity to showcase the city and all it has to offer to the country and the region."

CTV says the channel is working hard to produce and source more content, especially locally produced videos and thought-provoking documentaries.

BREAKING. Community television in South Africa takes a giant leap forward, forms new Association of Community Television South Africa.

The growing community television sector in South Africa is taking a giant leap forward with the formation of a new association, the Association of Community Television South Africa, which will be known as ACTSA and will represent the interest of community television and community TV stations in South Africa.

All of the existing community television licensees in South Africa - Soweto TV, Cape Town TV (CTV), Bay TV, One KZN (1KZN), Tshwane TV, North West TV and Bara TV - have signed a joint memorandum of understanding to create the Association of Community Television South Africa which will act to protect and promote, support and canvass for the community television sector in the country.

ACTSA will lobby for the community television sector in South Africa - under threat from a litany of challenges ranging from high signal distribution fees, undue influence and take-over threats from big corporate conglomerates, a lack of skilled personnel and training issues, soaring programming costs and even massive upcoming frequency disruption and viewer confusion as South Africa transitions from an analogue to a digital broadcasting space where community stations have to vacate their analogue frequencies and hope that viewers will be able to find them again.

Then there is also the South African government's interference. The government has started talk about the possible "regionalisation" of community television in South Africa to "provincial level" - something community TV stations don't want or need.

The government also wants to change the law to give the department of communication sweeping powers to appoint the boards of community television stations in South Africa - something else community TV stations are opposed to.

ACTSA will try and help with programme syndication, content exchange, the maximising of possible commercial opportunities as well as training and capacity building between community TV stations in the country.

ACTSA has elected an interim steering committee led by Motse Mfuleni from Bay TV as the chairperson, Karen Thorne from CTV as the deputy chairperson and Colin MacKenzie from Tshwane TV as the general secretary.

"ACTSA will make an important contribution to building media diversity and development in South Africa," says Motse Mfuleni. "Now we as the community television sector have a body that provides support and guidance for community TV stations and we are able to address our issues with one voice representing all the stakeholders in the sector."

ACTSA says all community TV stations joining the association have agreed to "a range of common values". These include a people-centered rather than a profit-driven approach to broadcasting, editorial and fiduciary independence, freedom of speech and community participation.

ACTSA will formulate a charter to help guide the activities of South Africa's community television sector which will include issues such as the mandate of community television in the country, programming, revenue streams and distribution platforms, governance, ownership and control and licensing categories.

TOLDJA! Tshwane TV added to TopTV from October on channel 185 as the pay-TV operator's second community TV channel.

TVSA broke the news half a month ago and I quickly got it confirmed as accurate: it still took TopTV half a month to admit to the news that the community TV station Tshwane TV will be added as a new TV channel to the pay-TV operator from Monday 1 October.

Confirming the open secret since 13 September TopTV says in a press statement that "Tshwane TV (TTV) will be broadcast on channel 185 on TopTV from 1 October".

"TopTV is adding a new channel to its bouquet when it proves a national platform for the community-based television service, Tshwane TV," says the pay-TV operator.

"For TopTV, the addition of Tshwane TV to its channel offering brings with it a variety of programming and local content as the second community-based channel in its platform," says TopTV which added 1KZN (TopTV 187) as its first community TV station in September last year.

Tshwane TV, started by Kopano Molefe, being added top TopTV, leaves two successful community TV stations in South Africa as yet unsigned with either TopTV or MultiChoice's DStv: BayTV in Port Elizabeth and CTV in Cape Town.

Tshwane TV's programming includes the first season of Generations, Be the Creature, Designer Guys, the American drama Safe Harbor and Chef at Home.

"This is an exciting development for TopTV since not everyone in the Tshwane area has been able to receive the channel," says Ian Woodrow, the vice president of channels at TopTV. "Now people with TopTV will be able to experience this channel not only in Tshwane but countrywide."

Tshwane TV has six hours of primetime viewing from 18:00 to midnight and offers a mix of locally-produced and international shows with a multilanguage format.

"Our goal with Tshwane TV has been to establish an independent and sustainable community TV station," says Collin Mackenzie, the marketing and sales director for Tshwane TV. "One of our initial objectives was to increase our geographical reach and viewership through a partnership with an existing broadcaster. We are delighted that we have achieved this through our agreement with TopTV."