NETFLIX KILLING DSTV IN SOUTH AFRICA COULD COST THOUSANDS OF JOBS.

South Africa is a leading video entertainment and internet company, MultiChoice has warned that if communications authority of the country proceeds with heavy-handed regulations for the pay TV market, it could cost thousands of jobs in South Africa.

ICASA (The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa) is a independent regulatory body of the South African Government, established in 2000 by the ICASA Act to regulate both telecommunications and broadcasting sectors in the public interest.

ICASA will hold public hearings on an inquiry into subscription television broadcasting services from 7-11 May, and MultiChoice has briefed the media on the feedback it will put forward.

The company will argue that ICASA must not go overboard with the regulations, and that whatever it implements should apply to the whole pay TV sector – including services like Netflix.

“Right now, it looks as though ICASA is focused only on what pay TV used to be, but it is moving from satellites to online,”

Said MultiChoice South Africa CEO Calvo Mawela.

In 2017, ICASA released a discussion document on the pay TV inquiry where it laid out options to address MultiChoice’s “market dominance” in South Africa.

These included forcing exclusive sports rights contracts to be shortened, unbundling and splitting the sports rights, and forcing MultiChoice to license its rights to other broadcasters.

If ICASA proceeds with this kind of regulation, it will kill DStv’s business and hand the South African market to online streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon, said MultiChoice.

Loss of jobs

“Netflix will never employ a lot of people around the world like we have. It employs around 4,000 people for the whole group,”
Said Mawela.

MultiChoice has 8,000 employees in South Africa alone. It said the majority of its staff are black, and that most of the people it employs are women.

At the end of its last financial year, MultiChoice’s staff complement was 87% black, and 51% black women.

It is also a level 1 BBBEE contributor, paying R10.4 billion to black suppliers in the last financial year.

While there will be jobs for South Africans working in the broadcasting sector at multinationals like Netflix and Amazon, those companies won’t have the local focus MultiChoice does.

Competing online

MultiChoice said it is also looking to take on the likes of Netflix with a streaming-only DStv package.

The fact is MultiChoice can’t invest nearly the amount of capital Netflix can, and it has to comply with local broadcasting regulations that Netflix isn’t being held to.

“We are an established, mature industry that is looking out over a cliff. These regulations will push [us] over that cliff,”
Said MultiChoice.

Mawela said if ICASA’s inquiry was held three years ago, while they were trying to establish a licensing framework for pay TV, it would have made more sense.

Now the market has moved on, however, and DStv is not the market power it used to be.

“It’s way too far down the line. The horse has bolted. It is time to liberalise the market, not regulate it more heavily,” said Mawela.

SOURCE:My Broadband.

Comments

CUBA CLAIMS CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER IS FIDEL CASTRO'S SON.

The suicide note left by Fidel Castro’s eldest son has rocked the Cuban nation this week, with the most astonishing revelation being the claim that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was his half-brother and the son of the late Fidel Castro. The handwritten note left by Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, 68, the eldest of Fidel Castro’s children, appears to confirm the longstanding rumor in Cuba that Fidel Castro fathered Justin Trudeau after a public tryst with Margaret Trudeau in 1970. “ Castro Diaz-Balart, who had been attended by a group of doctors for several months due to a state of profound depression, committed suicide this morning ,” Cubadebate website reported. The death of the high-profile government nuclear scientist, also known as “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of how much he looked like his father, stunned the nation, however it is his “ explosive ” suicide note that has set tongues wagging in Havana. Amid a wide-ranging barrage of compl...

WOMAN ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS A MAN IN THE HEAD WHILE SHOWING OFF ON FACEBOOK LIVE.

Houston police are investigating an incident where a man was accidentally shot in the head in a car. Three people were inside the vehicle in a petrol station carpark around 2:30am after Easter Sunday. A Facebook Live video was recording the two people playing around with two handguns, however, at one point, victim Devyn Holmes could be heard saying: "You're making me nervous." Another person replied: "It ain't got no clip, bud." Holmes tried to stop Cassandra Damper from waving the gun around the in car while she was talking about 'lying ass hoes'. He asked Damper where she's from and she replies: "Say something bitch". Seconds later the trigger was pulled and 26-year-old Holmes was shot in the head. Image: Jam Press. A CCTV camera captured the moment Damper and the other man jumped out of the car before several people who heard the commotion came over to see if they could help. Police and emergency se...

A 26-YEARS-OLD WOMAN ADOPTS 14 AFRICAN ORPHANS.

London, ENGLAND: A young British woman has become mum to a staggering 14 Tanzanian children she met after volunteering in an orphanage on her gap year. Letty McMaster, 26, was just 18 years old when a month-long trip volunteering at an orphanage in Africa changed her life forever. She ended up staying for three years to support the children she had met, and when the orphanage shut down, Letty took in nine youngsters who would have been left homeless. Seven years on, she lives with the children after becoming legal guardian to them ALL - as well as five more kids she met on the streets or at a safe house she runs. Letty McMaster. Letty, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said: "These children are my whole life, I raise them all on my own and they keep me going through the long hours of juggling everything. "I'd always had in mind that I wanted to help street children so my family and friends weren't surprised but I never expected to end up doing all this. " I am the pa...

WHY CHINA'S DOG-MEAT MARKET HAS EXPANDED.

Every year during the summer solstice, a dog-eating festival takes place in Yulin, a city in the southern Chinese province of Guangxi. This year’s event ended with the usual controversy. Photographs of dogs being fried or treated cruelly went viral. The Jinhua Hutou Dog Meat Festival, as it is called, was abruptly canceled last week. Animal-rights activists and American congressmen demanded that China ban the eating of dogs and cats, as Taiwan did in April. Yulin’s local government took modest steps to restrain or hide some of the more contentious activities, such as selling dogs in food markets. Still, the festival was packed. Why has the controversial culinary habit become so popular in China? Contrary to cliché, dog meat has not always been a common item in the Chinese diet. Unlike in the West, eating dogs has never been taboo, but it appears to have been rare in the past. Government accounts single out butchers who sold dog meat, suggesting it ...

PRESIDENT RAMAPHOSA'S SON TO MARRY UGANDAN EX-PRIME MINISTER'S DAUGHTER.

Kampala, UGANDA: Former Uganda Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi is set to become an in-law at the Mahlamba Ndlopfu, the home of the new President of South Africa Cyril Ramaphosa. John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, SC (simply known as Amama Mbabazi , born 16 January 1949) is a Ugandan politician who served as the ninth Prime Minister of Uganda from 24 May 2011 to 19 September 2014. Image: NP. Mbabazi’s niece, Ms. Bridget Birungi Rwakairu who he raised after her father was killed in the 1980s, will soon be exchanging vows with the South African First Son Mr. Andile Ramaphosa, Mbabazi’s family announced yesterday. The wedding will be preceded by a traditional function known as “Okushaba” which will be held this weekend at Mbabazi’s home on Saturday. 36 year old Bridget Birungi Rwakairu is daughter to Shadrack Rwakairu and Peace Ruhindi. Rwakairu was murdered in 1983 by the UNLA soldiers just five years into his marriage with Mrs Ruhindi. In a statement, Mbab...

YOUNG GIRLS FROM INDIA, PAKISTAN & NEPAL ARE TRAFFICKED TO WORK IN KENYAN NIGHTCLUBS.

Nairobi, KENYA: Nepali beautician Sheela* did not think twice about ditching her salon job when she received a call offering seven times her salary to work as a cultural dancer at a nightclub in Kenya. It did not matter that the 23-year-old woman from a village in the Himalayan foothills had never heard of the East African nation. Or that she had no experience as a dancer, had never met the owner of the club and was not shown an employment contract. With elderly parents to care for and medical bills to clear after her brother suffered a motorcycle accident, the offer of a monthly salary of $600, with food, housing and transport costs all covered, was a no-brainer for Sheela. "[But] it was not what I expected," said Sheela, who was rescued with 11 other Nepali women from a nightclub in Kenya's coastal city of Mombasa in April where she danced on stage from 9pm to 4am getting tips from male clients. "I was told that being escorted everywhere by the ...

JOSE MOURINHO ANNOUNCED NEW TOTTENHAM HOTSPURS COACH.

London, ENGLAND: Former Chelsea and Manchester United boss Mourinho has signed a contract until the end of the 2022-23 season. "The quality in both the squad and the academy excites me," said the 56-year-old Portuguese. "Working with these players is what has attracted me." Spurs chairman Daniel Levy said: "In Jose we have one of the most successful managers in football." Tottenham reached the Champions League final last season under Pochettino but lost to Liverpool in Madrid. The Argentine, who was appointed in May 2014, failed to win a trophy in his time in charge of the north London club with Spurs' last silverware being the League Cup in 2008. Levy added: "He (Mourinho) has a wealth of experience, can inspire teams and is a great tactician. "He has won honours at every club he has coached. We believe he will bring energy and belief to the dressing room." Mourinho still lives in London and won three Premier League...

"ZUMA TOOK ME TO HIS BEDROOM"

Image:GALLO IMAGES An unnamed journalist has detailed how President Jacob Zuma allegedly forced himself onto her, giving her a long kiss. This is revealed in a soon-to-be-launched book about the late Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo who, in 2005, accused Zuma of raping her. He was acquitted of the charge in 2006. The book Khwezi, written by prominent broadcaster Redi Tlhabi, details how Zuma invited a female journalist to his home in Forest Town. The Johannesburg house is the same one where Kuzwayo, who became known as Khwezi to protect her identity, accused Zuma of raping her. "She [the journalist] had been to his home to interview him about sensitive news matters. Nothing unusual there. " The journalist concerned did not feel uncomfortable at all when, after a meeting with the South African National Editors' Forum, Zuma invited her to his house to discuss a sensitive matter in front of one of his trusted aides." According to the book, Zuma called his ...

CASTER SEMENYA TURNS A PROFESSIONAL SOCCER PLAYER.

Johannesburg, S.AFRICA: The 28-year-old has signed for South African women's club JVW FC, a club based in the province of Gauteng that plays in the top flight of South African women's football. Three-time world champion Semenya will not be able to defend her 800 metres title at the world championships later this month after the Swiss Federal Tribunal reversed a ruling that temporarily lifted testosterone regulations imposed on her. However, she is appealing the Court of Arbitration for Sport's ruling that supported regulations introduced by the sport's governing body, the IAAF. In the meantime though, it appears the South African is exploring other sporting opportunities. "I'm grateful for this opportunity and I appreciate the love and support I already get from the team," Semenya said in a statement on JVW's website. "I'm looking forward to this new journey and hopefully I can contribute as much as I can to the clu...

Kioo17 Journal

Search This Blog