The current economic climate has continued to adversely impact the collection of TV licences with customers failing to pay their licences as households had less disposable income, according to the SABC Annual Report 2023/2024.
At the end of the fiscal year, 2.1 million (19.02%) accounts were paid which makes up of 79% of household licences, 20% of concessionary (subsidised) licences and 1% of business licences.
R22.3 million was collected from 1,019 government accounts in the 2024 fiscal year, however, there are still 2,490 overdue government accounts valued at R35 million.
The report from the public broadcaster showed that the revenue generated was the collective efforts of the debt collection agencies as well as SABC internal collections.
TV licence fees are collected through four revenue streams:
– renewals
– debt collection
– new licences
– the geographical information system (GIS).
The GIS linked National Address Database and National Address Range matching process was initiated to identify households across the country that are not available on the TV licences database.
This debt is pursued by internal and external resources through following a comprehensive process to collect licence fees from all government entities.
The major risk faced is the distressed economy that causes licence holders to default on payments without consequences. Despite the investments made by debt collection agencies (DCAs) in collection campaigns, the return on investment is low and results in increased costs for the DCAs.
Major marketing campaigns were initiated to retain compliant licence holders, to create awareness and education and to ensure engagement with licence holders through traditional and non-traditional media.
One campaign resulted in new licences reporting an improvement of 8% year-on-year while the Loyalty and Rewards programme which introduced in December 2023, resulted in 9,488 licence-holders registering for the programme.
Ramaphosa wants government to pay their TV licences
President Cyril Ramaphosa through his spokesperson Vincent Magwenya gave the instruction that all government departments need to urgently pay their outstanding TV licence bills and settle their debt to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
Magwenya said that government must enable the public broadcaster to fulfil its duties.
Ramaphosa’s spokesperson told the public broadcaster that the President would encourage and make a call to all departments that owe the SABC licence fees to immediately settle those fees.
“We want to have an SABC that remains viable and continues to serve the public. Therefore, it is important that the government enables the SABC to fulfil its duties,” Magwenya said.
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