FTR, SABC launching a streaming service is an NB step in helping it turn the corner and set itself up for long-term competitiveness, even if it is only about five years late to the party.

Here are some reasons why:

1. SABC shows have, in the main, ranked among the highest accessed across all services.
2. Multichoice Africa’s unscrupulous & unlawful sweetheart deal with Hlaudi re digitising & controlling the archive via ENCORE should give us an indication of the value of SABC’s archive.

3. SABC programming is not only of value to local market - there’s a real opportunity to leverage content in foreign markets through on-demand streaming. This is among the reasons why @SOSCoalition & @MediaMattersZA took the multichoice deal to the competition tribunal AND WON!

4. Yes, this becomes another vehicle by which SABC can build a case for a mandatory universal TV licence fee or restructure how it secures the revenue due to it by its users - US! Frankly, if we want an SABC that works we should be prepared to pay for it to.

5. We can poo-poo this move all we like, but SABC is a public asset that forms a core part of our critical news & info service infrastructure. We’re already complaining about the value-for-money we’re getting from pay-TV services & credibility of their news & info services +

Yet @SABCNews is working harder than ever to deliver credible & reliable news, so much so, that @SABCNEWS_ONLINE is growing and remains unrestricted by paywalls.

6. This isn’t anything new. BBC & ABC have demonstrated how this thing can work & support resilience of broadcasters.

So the long & the short of it is this:
We can either love hating the SABC and be satisfied with our entrapment in a capitalist media ecology, or we can genuinely understand it’s significance for SAns & our democracy, & be engaged in making it work for us. It’s really that simple.