New pay-television licensee Siyaya TV has rubbished claims by SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng that the public broadcaster has secured the rights to broadcast Bafana Bafana soccer matches.
“Any position taken by the SABC that it holds the Bafana Bafana broadcast rights is false and misleading,” Siyaya TV founder Aubrey Tau said on Thursday. “Siyaya TV is the sole and exclusive owner of these rights, in terms of its signed contract with Safa.”
Last August, Siyaya announced that it had secured a R1bn broadcast deal with the South African Football Association for the rights to broadcast Bafana Bafana football games.
According to reports at the time, the deal gives Siyaya the rights to all Bafana Bafana and Banyana Banyana matches.
SABC television news claimed on Wednesday that the broadcaster has signed a three-year agreement with Safa to broadcast all live local internationals involving Bafana and Banyana (the women’s national team) as well as national under-23 and under-20 games. Motsoeneng was quoted as saying that negotiations are at an advanced stage to secure rights to Bafana’s away matches as well.
But Siyaya has hit out, saying the SABC has no rights as claimed.
“Siyaya is committed to ensuring the Bafana Bafana brand is further elevated and reaches as many of the viewing public as possible, and it was for this reason that Siyaya Tv approached SABC over two months ago in order to discuss the granting of free to air broadcasting rights to SABC. It is unfortunate that Siyaya were summarily rejected by SABC who refused to deal with Siyaya on the matter,” Tau said in a statement e-mailed to TechCentral.
“SABC ignored Siyaya, and subsequently approached Safa on the matter of buying the broadcast rights. However, [the SABC was] duly informed by Safa that the rights now belong exclusively to Siyaya.
“Siyaya has since not heard directly from SABC, but has in the meantime, and in good faith, been in talks with Safa regarding the possibility of granting free-to-air broadcast rights to the SABC, and is at the same time has also engaged with e.tv in similar discussions.”
Tau said Siyaya has made “no commitments to and signed no contracts with any other broadcasters regarding the soccer broadcasting rights and remains the sole and exclusive owner of these rights”.
Siyaya is one of a number of new licensees that hope to take advantage of communications regulator Icasa’s plans to open up the airwaves to more competition once the country switches over to digital transmission of television broadcasts.
It hopes to begin broadcasts later this year.
The 100% black-owned Siyaya’s main shareholder is the Bakgatla Ba Kgafela tribe in North West. It wants to offer local content, with a strong focus on football, for a low monthly subscription fee.
It intends targeting black South Africans with an average age of 30 and a monthly household income of between R4 000 and R10 000, a potential market of a million viewers, it said. — © 2014 NewsCentral Media
