Pretoria - The SABC is now demanding that South Africans pay TV licence fees for computer monitors, even if they are not using those devices to watch TV.
According to the Mybroadband, the public broadcaster sent a notice through an annual e-mailed TV Licence Renewal Notice letter.
The notices comes a few years after the SABC put on the table and then scrapped the idea of charging TV licence fees for any device that could connect to the internet, including smart phones.
This year’s notice stated that the definition of a TV set includes a “TV monitor (without receiving capabilities) able to receive a broadcast signal by virtue of being connected to any television receiving equipment.”
The broadcaster specified that the receiving equipment could include a “digital box/decoder, DVD [player] or PC”.
The SABC’s executive for corporate affairs and marketing, Gugu Ntuli, said the letter referred to TV monitors connected to TV receiving equipment.
“It must be noted that such receiving equipment (STB, decoder, tuner, etc.) renders the TV monitor as a TV due to the television broadcast signal transmitted,” Ntuli was quoted as saying.
Mybroadband said the SABC’s letter specifically named a DVD player and PC as examples of TV receiving equipment, when neither has this inherent capability, which makes it possible for licence holders to easily mistake the term “digital box” for a streaming box with no broadcast-receiving functionality.
The online publication followed up with the broadcaster, but it did not respond by the time the article was published.
Speaking to the publication, Outa chief executive Wayne Duvenage said that the SABC’s addition of monitors was wrong and appeared to be opportunistic in its search for “ailing” TV licence revenue.
“They had plans to amend the Act to include screens and computers that didn’t have television receiving capabilities, but I’m not sure this was done, and if so, it would have been heavily challenged in court,” Duvenage was quoted as saying.
IOL