SABC must forget broadcasting

Former general manager of SABC Sport Garry Rathbone has said that the public broadcaster should focus all of its attention on its SABC+ platform to attract advertising revenue.

“The SABC has the most future-proof option in its hand right now, which is SABC+,” Rathbone told Cape Talk.

“And everything, every resource the SABC has should be turned around to focus on driving advertising, audience reach, and retention into that space.”

Launched in November 2022, the initial SABC+ platform was a rebranding of the TelkomOne streaming service rolled out about a year earlier.

According to the SABC, that earlier version of the service had surged to an estimated one million active monthly users by May 2024.

In July 2024, the platform was relaunched with stability improvements, new features, higher resolution streaming, catch-up content, and support for new smart TV operating systems.

However, Rathbone believes the SABC is not making the most of its viewership numbers.

“If you look at free-to-air broadcasts in the United States, they don’t have this problem. They’ve got millions and millions of dollars to spend because they commercialise their huge audiences,” Rathbone argued.

“The BBC is a good example. The BBC could solve all of their problems tomorrow if they did one simple thing: allow advertising, as they too rely on TV licences for funding.”

He argues that the public broadcaster has the country’s biggest audiences yet still fails to drive advertising revenue that correlates with those numbers.

On the other hand, he says that MultiChoice has accumulated the same share of advertising revenue with much smaller viewer bases.

Regarding international streaming platforms, he agrees with the idea of a levy on streaming platforms such as Netflix or Amazon Prime to level the playing field.

This is because they do not experience the same restrictions and regulations as local broadcasters, such as the SABC and E-tv.

When asked whether quality content attracts advertisers or whether a broadcaster first needs revenue to develop quality, Rathbone said that quality comes first.

“Those with smaller budgets need to ensure that their budgets go a long way and that they are careful to ensure that they deliver quality,” he said.

“If they increase the quality of their content, they can build and bring audiences back and start attracting advertisers again.”

SABC+ picking up steam

The SABC’s streaming service has seen tremendous growth recently, amassing 850,000 users since its relaunch. This has nearly doubled since October, when viewership was 500,000.

With an average of 94,444 new users every month since the relaunch, the service could break past one million registrations in the 2025/2026 year, well ahead of its communicated target.

Internet traffic analysis platform Similarweb also showed substantial growth for the sabc-plus.com website, notching close to one million visitors in January 2025.

In the shorter month of February, the figure had declined slightly to about 861,600 users.

However, SABC+’s ranking in South Africa improved from 463rd in December 2024 to 388th in February 2025.

For comparison, eMedia’s eVOD video streaming service — launched over a year before SABC+ — ranked 899th with 384,300 visitors in February 2025.

While still just a fraction of its overall income, SABC+’s expansion increased digital revenue by 66% between 2022/2023 and 2023/2024.

Pre-roll ads were introduced to SABC+ at the start of the last financial year, which should positively impact the digital revenue reported in the SABC’s 2024/2025 financial results.

SABC communications head Mmoni Ngubane also told MyBroadband that the service will implement banner ads “soon,” increasing its monetisation potential.

However, Ngubane emphasised that SABC+ was not yet profitable and that the broadcaster’s corporate plan included different strategies to ensure all its platforms and channels were optimised for favourable performance in terms of the SABC’s public and commercial mandate.