By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies minister Solly Malatsi and his counterpart in the sports, arts & culture ministry, Gayton McKenzie,met with the broadcasters in a bid to resolve ongoing feud over sports rights.
Malatsi described the meeting with the broadcasters as productive.
However, SuperSport and its parent MultiChoice Group, did not attend.
In the latest battle, the SABC backed out of a deal with rightsholder SuperSport – a subsidiary of MultiChoice Group – that led to the national broadcaster no longer airing the Irish test series between the Springboks and Ireland on 6 and 13 July.
The SABC had blamed litigation by eMedia as its reason for backtracking on the deal. eMedia filed an urgent application with the competition appeal court to enforce an April ruling by the Competition Tribunal that interdicted the SABC from entering into sublicensing agreements with MultiChoice – or any of its subsidiaries – that limit the public broadcaster from airing sports matches on its own channels distributed via eMedia’s free-to-air Openview satellite platform.
The Competition Tribunal’s April ruling followed October 2023 litigation by eMedia, which came after a similar dispute over Rugby World Cup sublicensing rights.
eMedia also said that it made a significant financial offer to MultiChoice to broadcast the Irish rugby Pretoria and Durban test matches, which MultiChoice inexplicably rejected.
“As new ministers in our portfolios, we need to understand what the sources of the deadlock are,” Malatsi said. “The second aspect [we needed to understand] is the commercial aspects of the contest for bidding for sports rights, which is a far more complicated issue because it is about market competition, etc.”
Malatsi said the meeting shed light on the collective responsibility that all role players, regardless of whether they are a national broadcaster or not, have in delivering sports matches of national interest to the public.
He said he and McKenzie noted that there are “regulatory impediments”, with specific reference to Icasa’s rules, that contribute to “constant uncertainty”, which has led to legal skirmishes in the industry.
The two ministers have committed themselves to investigating these “regulatory obstacles” and tackling them in a way that will lead to “fairness in the competition for sports rights”.
Meanwhile in his first public appearance as Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Malatsi, delivered his inaugural budget vote for the department in Parliament, detailing his vision to propel South Africa into a connected and digitally transformed era.
“Our mandate is to enable digital inclusion and economic growth by creating an enabling policy and regulatory environment, stabilising state-owned entities, and implementing the digital economy master plan,” Malatsi stated.
The new minister highlighted the department’s achievements and challenges, including progress in spectrum auctioning, broadcasting digital migration, the digitisation of government services, and expanding broadband connectivity to underserved areas.
Acknowledging financial constraints and operational difficulties faced by entities such as the SABC, the South African Post Office, and the State Information Technology Agency, Malatsi assured that efforts are underway to resolve disputes, debts, and inefficiencies.
For the 2024/25 financial year, the department’s total budget stands at R3.9bn.
This allocation includes increased compensation for employees, transfers and subsidies to ICT enterprises and state-owned entities, and funding for SA Connect – the flagship broadband rollout programme of the Ramaphosa administration.