McKenzie willing to go to war for broadcast rights

Sport, Arts and Culture Minister, Gayton McKenzie, is urging Multichoice, eMedia, and the SABC to find common ground and come up with a solution to the ongoing impasse over the sub-licensing broadcast rights for sporting events.

He’s warned that failure to do so – the broadcaster risk going to war with his department.

“It is wrong, the national team does not belong to Multichoice, or SABC, or eTV. It doesn’t belong to them, so none of the should act like the national team belongs to them, none of them,” said the Minister.

“I’m not going to be an enabler of the majority of our people not being able to watch the national team.”

McKenzie says there’s legislation that prohibits the broadcasters from the ongoing tussle.

“We are cpming in peace, but if they want war will give them war. This is a friendly warning, fix this thing before we declare war.”

McKenzie made the bold statement yesterday afternoon at his Post Budget Vote Media Briefing in Cape Town.

The broadcasters are currently embroiled in an impasse over sport broadcasting rights, which has seen the majority of South Africans denied the majority of South Africans the opportunity to watch national teams such as the Springboks and the Proteas on free to air broadcasters.

The most recent spat is over the broadcast rights of Springbok matches, which are currently held by pay TV channel Multichoice.

Last week Thursday, SA Rugby released a statement expressing its support of the SABC’s decision to suspend its planned broadcast of the Springboks’ Incoming Series matches against Ireland and placed the blame for the suspension squarely on eMedia.

SARU say the issue stems from a Competition Tribunal interdict that blocks Multichoice from including restrictions on sports broadcasting rights agreements for the next six months while the Tribunal considers the merits of eMedia’s case.

“At the core of the issue is a six-month Competition Tribunal order effectively allowing eMedia to broadcast the SABC’s coverage of Springbok matches on their Openview platform without eMedia compensating the SABC, despite the SABC having paid SuperSport for the broadcasting rights.” read the statement.

Statement: SA Rugby has expressed its support for the SABC’s decision to suspend its planned broadcast of the #Springboks’ matches against Ireland – more here: https://t.co/iJsrCzoo18 🎥 pic.twitter.com/6L2qnCu6XB

— Springboks (@Springboks) July 11, 2024

eMedia says MultiChoice and the SABC have it wrong.

The media investment holding company says that while the effect of the ruling is that Supersport and the SABC could not enter an agreement that excluded the public broadcaster’s audiences on eMedia’s OpenView HD platform, the two broadcasters went ahead and signed an agreement that excluded the SABC’s Openview viewers.

In a statement, eMedia quotes the Competition Tribunal’s ruling.

“The First to Fourth Respondents [i.e. SuperSport, MultiChoice and the SABC] are interdicted from implementing and enforcing any restriction in sub-licensing agreements entered into between them relating to the broadcasting of sports events in terms of which the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SOC) Proprietary Limited (SABC) is prohibited from transmitting or making available the sub-licence broadcasts on platforms owned or operated by the Applicants [eMedia and Openview.”