Goodbye TV Licence — Cheapest 30-inch and bigger monitors

2 years ago 2

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The way South Africans watch TV has shifted significantly in recent years, with many ditching traditional broadcast TV for video streaming services.

Moreover, a large portion of South Africans actively avoid paying their South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) TV licence fees, and a valid licence is required when buying a new TV.

The SABC has been facing an uphill battle to collect TV licence fees from its customers for the past few years, with 82% of licence holders evading payment in 2021.

The public broadcaster first highlighted licence fee evasion rates in its 2018 annual report, and reports that followed show a negative trend:

2018: 72% not paying
2019: 69% not paying
2020: 81% not paying
2021: 82% not paying

These evasion rates are for households registered with the SABC that previously had a valid TV licence but have since stopped paying. They do not account for those who’ve never had a TV licence.

With it clear that the current TV licence scheme is no longer viable, the SABC, civil society groups, and the ruling party have advocated for replacing the system with a household tax.

In January 2023, then-communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni revealed that the African National Congress (ANC) supports scrapping the SABC TV licence in favour of a household levy.

This was one of the outcomes of the ANC national elective conference held in December 2022.

Ntshavheni said government had already begun drafting the relevant framework for a household levy to replace SABC TV licences.

The concept isn’t new, with the ANC first discussing the idea of a household levy in December 2020.

The SABC then proposed the idea in September 2021 during public hearings for the draft SABC Bill.

According to its proposal, the levy would be technology-neutral and based on a household’s ability to access SABC services rather than the actual use of its services.

Moreover, the public broadcaster said it believes South Africa’s dominant pay-TV broadcaster, MultiChoice, should help collect the household levy.

While supporting the idea of a technology-neutral levy, MultiChoice is firmly against the idea that it should be responsible for helping collect payments.

However, according to Dominic Cull of Ellipsis Regulatory Solutions, such a system would take more than five years to implement.

He explained that the process would require intensive engagement with other departments, such as National Treasury, to allow the levy to be incorporated into the government budget.

That would only come after complex legalities around the issue are first cleared up.

In addition to the drawn-out legal and financial processes, Cull believes there would be fierce public resistance to the household levy.

Cheapest big-screen monitors

MyBroadband found that South Africans have multiple big-screen monitors from which to choose, with options starting at R3,999.

However, the five most-affordable monitors listed only support full high-definition (FHD) 1080p resolution.

Those looking for a higher-resolution display will have to fork out more, with the cheapest QHD and UHD displays costing R6,146 and R6,499, respectively.

The cheapest 43-inch monitor is Mecer’s full HD 43L8SF, which we found for R4,575, albeit in limited stock. It also has the slightly more expensive 43L88F which starts from R4,765.

For higher resolutions, buyers generally have to fork out substantially more.

For example, Dell’s UltraSharp 42.5-inch UHD screen goes for around R17,879.

Thirteen of the cheapest big-screen monitors South Africans can use to stream video online without paying for a TV licence are listed below.