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AUDIO, AUDIOVISUAL MEDIA SERVICES: INPUT SOUGHT ON DRAFT WHITE PAPER
- 11 July 2025
- Communications & Digital Technologies
- SA Legal Academy
The Department of Communications & Digital Technologies has gazetted a draft White Paper on audio and audiovisual media services (AAVMS ) and online safety – calling for public comment by 10 August 2025.
Noting ‘the rise of global streaming platforms, user-generated content and non-linear media consumption’, the draft White Paper’s executive summary acknowledges that the prevailing regulatory framework is ‘no longer fit for purpose’, having been ‘designed in an analogue broadcasting era’.
Against that backdrop, the policy now being proposed seeks to:
- ‘balance media freedom with public interest’
- ‘stimulate local content productionV
- ensure platform accountability, and
- strengthen protection against digital harm.
This is according to the document’s executive summary, which outlines key issues underpinning the policy proposals concerned, including:
- an ‘expanded’ approach to each of the broadcasting system’s prevailing three tiers (including legal and licence-related obligations)
- the possibility of a ‘transitional framework’ to accommodate service providers now operating without licences
- the extension of free-to-air and free-to-view services to include ‘broadcasting in the broader AAVMS market’
- improved regulatory authority governance
- a regular review of statutory prohibitions against piracy and the circumvention of technological protection measures
- the role of the Competition Commission and Independent Communications Authority of South Africa in ensuring a ‘plurality of voices and diversity of programming in the public interest’
- creating ‘an enabling policy environment for increased foreign direct investment’
- adjustments to the limitations on foreign ownership in linear individual audiovisual content services (from 20% to maximum of 49%)
- the removal of limitations on cross-media ownership (including the distinction between AM and FM sound broadcasting licences), and
- establishing an ‘ombudsman for online safety and media regulation’.
Please click the link below for more information:
- draft White Paper
Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch
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