Multichoice Supports Calls For A Household ‘TV Tax’ In South Africa

PAY-TV operator Multichoice says that it supports the SABC’s proposals to introduce a household levy to help save the national broadcaster.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) plans to introduce an annual household levy of R265 on the eight million households currently in its TV licence billing system.

The SABC said that the levy should apply to all households, including those that use smartphones, tablets and computers to stream TV and radio shows – even if they were not watching SABC programmes.

Instead, the levy would effectively be placed on households who are simply capable of accessing SABC programming.

Multichoice spokesperson Collen Dlamini told BusinessDay that the current TV licence model should be scrapped as it is outdated and not in line with international best practice.

However, Multichoice said that it did not support the proposal that will make pay-TV operators collect a levy on behalf of the SABC. Instead,