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ANC: ‘Dismantle monopolies’

The ANC has acknowledged that attempts to make the broadcasting landscape more competitive have failed drastically and that it will need a new strategy if it is to break MultiChoice’s stranglehold. It is also deeply concerned about the state of the SABC and wants to see greater transformation across the ICT sector.  

This is according to an ANC discussion document titled Towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, published ahead of the party’s national policy conference to be held at the end of June. The report states that efforts to licence competitors to take on MultiChoice have been “futile” and suggests a review of licensing conditions for pay-TV players.  

“The current regulatory regime, imposed at the time when the subscription market was small and had a relatively insignificant share of the total audience, must be changed to reflect the size and therefore the obligations to ensure fairness across the whole television market,” reads the document.  

It proposes addressing decoder monopoly in order to promote interoperability of decoders, a move that would have a big impact on MultiChoice. The paper also calls for the accessibility of national events and sports of national interest to be looked at, a possible reference to SuperSport’s stranglehold on sports rights. As a sports fan who doesn’t fork out a fortune on a DStv subscription every month, this is welcome news.  

“South Africa must open the subscription television market, which is currently dominated by one player, Naspers[*], through MultiChoice and DStv,” reads the document.   

However, it also singles out over-the-top (OTT) services such as Netflix, YouTube and Amazon Prime Video for greater attention. The ANC warns their entry could lead to “unfair competition” for existing licensees who have public interest obligations attached to their licences. The ruling party wants to see the creation of local OTTs to compete with foreign OTTs.  

The document bemoans the lack of progress with digital migration, saying it’s “far from completion”. “Recent court cases around the nature of the set top box control mechanisms pitting government against e-tv have exacerbated the delays – thus deferring the urgent release of the strategic radio frequency spectrum needed to accelerate the rollout of broadband and high-speed internet networks,” reads the report.   

It suggests that the digital migration process for South African television should be used to break up “monopolies and concentration” across the television value chains.  

These criticisms of the delays in digital migration highlight the fact that the ANC and the ANC-led government do not see eye-to-eye, with previous minister of communications Faith Muthambi acting contrary to ANC policy on digital terrestrial television (DTT). 

“Dismantling monopoly must be through legislative interventions in areas like ownership and control rules, [and] probes into anticompetitive behaviours and market structure”, reads the discussion document.   

It calls for the establishment of two regulators as per the national integrated ICT policy white paper, one for content and one for competition and networks. “These two regulators must be established without delay so that they provide the necessary capacity for flexible and proactive regulation,” it adds.  

According to the document, the state of the SABC is a great cause for concern. “A trust deficit has emerged between the citizenry and the SABC, as the public broadcaster lurches from one crisis to another,” it reads. “The opportunity cost of this has been substantial, as millions of South Africans turn to social media and antagonistic mainstream media platforms for their sources of information, many of which lack credibility.” 

The document also highlighted concerns aobut corporate governance at the SABC, saying there is a need to clarify the “legislative scheme as it pertains to the governance and operations of the SABC”. The broadcaster currently has to comply with both the Broadcasting Act and the Companies Act, which has led to some ambiguity. 

BEE also gets a mention. The document states that government will work together with the ICT industry to achieve 51% black and South African ownership of the “major networks and platforms”.   

It calls for the acceleration of the roll-out of the national broadband plan SAConnect and calls on government to identify and introduce various funding models to accelerate the roll-out. It also calls for regulatory institutions to allocate resources to complete the outstanding market reviews to reduce the costs of telecommunications services, following the #DataMustFall protest movement. 

*finweek is a publication of Media24, a subsidiary of Naspers. 

This article originally appeared in the 13 April edition of finweekBuy and download the magazine here.
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