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- In South Africa, an annual television licence is R265 per year, or you can pay R28 per month.
- The United Kingdom just hiked its licence fee to the equivalent of more than R4 000 per year.
- The government said it will review funding options for the BBC.
The TV licences that pay for the UK's BBC – the system on which the SABC's licence fees were modelled – will now cost citizens the equivalent of R4 000 per year.
UK media minister Lucy Frazer on Thursday announced a £10.50 in the fee from April, to just under £170. At current exchange rates, that comes to just a hair over R4 000.
In South Africa, the annual licence is R265, or you can pay R28 every month instead.
The UK fee had been frozen at £159 for two years, during which Britain saw a sharp spike in inflation.
The fee increase could have been steeper, but instead of a using a 9% annual inflation number, it was calculated based on 6.7% inflation in September.
"This is a fair deal that provides value for money for the licence fee payer while also ensuring that the BBC can continue to produce world-leading content," said Frazer.
Frazer said her department would also review the broadcaster's funding in the long term.
She said the audience for broadcast television fell significantly last year, with 79% of the population tuning in each week, down from 83% in 2021, in a rapidly changing media landscape.
"As this trend continues, linking the TV licence to watching live TV will become increasingly anachronistic," she told lawmakers on Thursday.
The review would look at a range of funding options, she said, including how the broadcaster could increase its commercial income to reduce the burden on licence-fee payers.
The BBC said the lower-than-expected rise, after two years of no increases during a time of high inflation, would mean it would have to go further in making savings.
"Our content budgets are now impacted, which in turn will have a significant impact on the wider creative sector across the UK," its board said in a statement.
"We will confirm the consequences of this as we work through our budgets in the coming months.
