STAATSKOERANT, 24 JANUARIE 2014 No. 37261 8.8.1.1 Television Services Subscription television services have shown extremely strong growth in audiences in recent years. This has been driven by an increase in subscribers to DSTV rather than increased competition in the sector. There were three subscription television services on air by October 2013 - satellite subscription services, DSTV, and terrestrial pay TV operator M-Net - both part of Nasionale Pers' Multi Choice - and new player TopTV/StarSat. As noted in other sections, TopTV/StarSat is the only one of five additional subscription services licensed by ICASA in 2009 to go on air. It has faced challenges - and was placed under business rescue in 2012. ICASA has recently invited applications for new subscription services and was considering these applications at the time of finalising this Green Paper. The growth of DSTV (in terms of number of subscribers and therefore both subscription revenue and its share of adspend) is linked to its strategy to increase penetration by offering a range of different and cheaper bouquets targeting different sections of the population. DSTV has also in recent years increased the number of South African channels it airs (including the introduction of a range of Mzansi channels) - thus contributing towards the public interest objective of ensuring that South African audiences have access to South African content across all platforms. This increase has been driven by commercial imperatives rather than regulatory requirements. The four FTA channels (SABC 1, 2, 3 and e.tv) which are simulcast by DSTV are among the most popular services on the platform. Subscriptions to M-Net have declined over the period - from 16% of the adult population in 1998 (4,1 million viewers) to under 10% in 2012 (2.41 million) The pay-tv service has stated that this is in part due to delays in the launch of DTT as it stopped marketing the sale of analogue set top boxes pending the launch. M-Net is one of the key channel providers to . DSTV. It will be able to offer an increased number of channels to subscribers with the migration to digital transmission. Given the dramatic changes in the pay-TV market since the development of the White Paper, it may need to be necessary to review many of the policy and legislative provisions that currently apply to these services. In the 2013 parliamentary hearings on amendments to existing laws, for example, other licensees suggested that subscription services access to advertising should be further limited as they claimed this threatened the viability of the FTA services. Parliament indicated that such issues should rather be discussed through a holistic review of broadcasting related policies. The existing White Paper recognises that commercial free to air broadcasters rely almost entirely on advertising and sponsorship revenue to meet key public interest objectives. It therefore stipulated that subscription services should rely primarily on subscription fees and that free to air services must have access to "revenues that are sufficient to allow them to meet their public service obligations". Given the number of subscribers to DSTV and M-Net at the time, it was believed that this would sufficiently limit such services access to advertising. The situation has however changed and the overall subscription revenue now exceeds that of overall television advertising revenue. 8.8.2 Commercial Radio Commercial radio broadcasters do not face the same immediate challenges in relation to digitisation as television services - though there are an increasing number of South African internet radio stations and international and local music streaming providers. As commercial radio broadcasters are licensed to cover different licence areas, and/or to provide different formats and services, the current licensing framework is aimed at ensuring that services do not directly compete with each other. These measures are further aimed at promoting diversity of services and content available to audiences. 61 This gazette is also available free online at www.gpwonline.co.za 65