Calandra, Curtis, Donovan, Lewis, Logan, Luttmer, Thoma, Vought 1

Alexis Calandra, Connor Curtis, Daniel Donovan, Matt Lewis, Luke Logan, St Cyr Luttmer,
Shane Thoma, Sam Vought
Mr. Covington
JOUR 541
5 December 2019

South Africa

Grame Joffe is a South African sports journalist. He has worked in TV, radio and

broadcasting. He also worked at CNN for seven years. He was chased out of South Africa for

investigating corruption in South African sport. Our group fortunately had the opportunity to

interview him and discuss the organization SuperSport, a company he worked for before starting

his investigative sports journalism career.

SuperSport is a South African based group of sport television channels carried on the

DStv satellite platform. The channel broadcasts most major sporting events and leagues of

association. The organization began because in 1986, Naspers, a technology investor company,

started M-Net, South Africa’s first pay- for channel. In 1988, sports coverage on M-Net began

running under the banner M-Net SuperSport. In 1995, M-Net SuperSport ceased to exist, and

SuperSport became a multi-channel network and an independent brand. Today, SuperSport

continues to show a broad range of sports in South Africa and internationally. It is a paid for

channel because it is owned by Naspers, a private company. MultiChoice is an entertainment

company that is a subsidiary of Naspers. DStv, is owned by Multichoice, which is the satellite

service that SuperSport’s channels run on. SuperSport has its own independent channels, but

they are run on the DStv platform. Think of DStv as Dish or DirectTV in the United States. They

are satellite pay for channels with hundreds of channels carried on their platforms, this is exactly

like DStv. SuperSport channels run on this platform, just as ESPN’s channels run on Dish and

DirectTV.
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SuperSports mission is to be the best and most successful provider of pay television

sports coverage across the country of South Africa. They provide highlights, statistics and

coverage of sports games. Although, SuperSport is a privately-owned company, they keep away

from controversial and investigative sports journalism with the fear of angering the government

and being shut down. Mr. Joffe described the media's relationship with the government as a

“growing cancer that cannot be treated.” The South African government controls a lot of what is

seen in the media, especially government owned organizations, like the SABC. There is also a

huge sense of distrust in the media because they tend to focus on the mainstream elite; those able

to afford pay- for channels. In order to keep its channels afloat, SuperSport strays away from

reporting on any information that could upset the government.

SuperSport broadcasts a dozen different sports on over 14 channels as well as across its

streaming platform and app. The SuperSport network covers football, rugby, cricket, cycling,

golf, motorsport and even WWE events on its network. Viewers can also watch on the website

SuperSport.com which offers live streams of all SuperSport channels 24 hours a day. The

website also provides schedules, results, highlights, podcasts and more as well as video own

content on its YouTube channel and Facebook page.

It has become a frontrunner in sports entertainment in South Africa. This is due to its

broadcasting monopolies on many different sports leagues. In 1992, they scored the rights to the

Cricket World Cup. In 1995, SuperSport scored the rights to broadcast Super 12 and Tri Nations,

two huge rugby competitions. In 2007, it bought exclusive rights to South Africa’s Premier

Soccer League. This made it a serious player in sports broadcasting in South Africa. Since then,

SuperSport has scooped up the exclusive rights to the English Premier League, WWE, and the

Rugby World Cup among others. However, SuperSport used to be the world’s biggest
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broadcaster of rugby and cricket until Sky Sport surpassed it. Sky Sport is a group of British

subscription television sports channels operated by the satellite pay- TV company, Sky. The

company retired several individual channels, like Sky 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 and introduced a package

channel deal that was two- thirds cheaper than its initial prices. Essentially, with the

restructuring, people get the same coverage on fewer channels, for less money.

Around 85 percent of SuperSport viewers reside in South Africa, while the rest of the

viewers are spread out in small percentages across the world. Viewership is high in the UK,

probably due to similar sports interests, but over the past few years it has dropped by almost 40

percent. The SuperSport website itself mimics other popular sports broadcasting websites, like

ESPN. In order to watch the SuperSport channels, you must subscribe.

The country of South Africa is riddled with poverty with around 25% of its population

residing below the poverty line. Due to the SuperSport channels being a subscription service, a

majority of the South African population cannot afford it because it is too expensive. There are

currently no packages where you are able to only subscribe to SuperSport without having to

subscribe to DStv as well, making it more expensive. Around 57 million people live in South

Africa and SuperSport has seven million subscribers, meaning around 12.3% of the country has

access to these channels. This 12.3% represents the upper to middle class citizens of the country,

those who can afford to pay. For the middle- and upper-class sports lovers, SuperSport’s

comparable to the best coverage of live sport in the world, but the content and guests on

magazine shows are controlled to steer away from controversy which may upset federations and

the government. Its target audience is intended to be everyone, but unfortunately, it only reaches

a specific group due to the cost. Mr. Joffe said the poor sometimes give up a meal or other basic
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necessities to try and afford the channels, which is unfortunate and due to the fact that

SuperSport owns the TV rights to almost all of the most popular sports in South Africa.

Sports broadcasting rights are highly competitive in South Africa because sports are

extremely popular. Fans are passionate and dedicated to following their teams. Broadcasters

want to have as much sports content on their channels because it attracts more viewers. A

majority of sport broadcasting rights are held by the SuperSport channels. Commonly, matches

and big competitions that SuperSport owns the rights to will be shown on other channels.

However, they will be aired hours after the competitions have begun and the results have already

been posted. Most sporting rights agreements require that the broadcaster show every event/

match of the tournament or league. The SABC only has five channels and SuperSport has 14. It

is one of the few broadcasters with enough capacity to realistically fulfil these requirements.

SuperSport is seen as a juggernaut of spending power, sports broadcasting rights, and number of

channels on which they can showcase its content. However, the sporting rights landscape is

actively and rapidly changing. Rights to sports are open for anyone to bid on and broadcasters

are free to negotiate with the current rights holders. SuperSport says that there are ways for

South Africans without pay for TV to watch sports. Its sport broadcasting right regulations

ensure that sporting events and games of popular national interest, like matches played by South

African teams and international competitions, like World Cups and the Olympics are made

available to free- to- air broadcasters. SuperSport is also able to waive its rights for competitions

and leagues so other broadcasters are able to show the events. This was seen in 2018 when

SuperSport waived its Super Rugby season broadcasting fee so the SABC was able to cover the

games on some of its radio stations.

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Also, the SABC, as South Africa’s public broadcaster, is mandated to cover certain

tournaments, games and competitions if identified as national sporting events. Some examples of

these events are the FIFA World Cup, the Olympic Games, and the ICC Cricket World Cup.

South Africans without SuperSport are still able to watch sporting competitions and events, but it

is more difficult than if they subscribe to the channels. They have a more limited access to

sporting competitions and may not be able to watch all of the games and events that they wish to.

However, they are still able to access the competitions seen as “major” sporting events.

The SABC owned most of the sports broadcasting rights in South Africa before

SuperSport became involved. SuperSport was the first real contender to the SABC for the right

to broadcast live sports. The SABC and its pay per view was less favorable to the public than a

subscription to SuperSport, where subscribers could watch any live event. The SABC was in a

predicament financially and did not have an option better than selling most of its sports

broadcasting rights. SuperSport, as stated above, now controls international broadcasting events

from all over the world, including the Olympics. The South African government focuses most of

its attention on advertising to bring in the money. SuperSport generates millions of dollars in

revenue for its holding company, Naspers, which is listed on the Johannesburg stock exchange.

Its two main sources of profit are its monthly subscriptions and advertising on its channels.

Our group found that SuperSport professionally and concisely covers local and

international sports stories. It’s extremely well run, they make sure to stay on top of current

events in regard to sport and they cover a diverse, wide range of sports. Its website is easy to

navigate, providing its subscribers with schedules, results, games, podcasts, stories and much

more. They typically remain unbiased and not overly opinionated, other than a few occurrences

towards South African teams. However, its coverage is all stats, facts and figures. Mr. Joffe
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explained that the government technically has no control over SuperSport and can’t regulate

what goes on the channels, but they have attempted to regulate it to where more people have

access to pay TV. In South Africa, the government is extremely corrupt and much of the media is

seen as “the mouthpiece of the government,” so even private organizations have this fear of

being shut down. If they upset the wrong people, it’s very feasible that their organization could

suffer. With that being said, SuperSport never covers any corruption involving South African

sport. They never expose any corrupt powerful leaders in South African sport. Politics in sport is

never discussed and they have zero investigative journalism stories. They never push the

boundaries and there’s a huge lack of opinion or commentary, only ever covering the event in its

most basic form. However, it’s important to recognize that SuperSport does bring spotlight to a

lot of incredible athletes and sports stories in South Africa. South Africans have a lot of pride in

their country and are very dedicated sport fans and SuperSport does an awesome job at

showcasing this positively.

Mr. Joffe described SuperSport’s future as remaining as it is now, excluding any

corruption and controversial topics in its reports and channels. The media system South Africa

currently has will remain the same unless media organizations team up and push for the change

together. The South African government will continue to corrupt the nation and maintain control

over the media until this happens. Media organizations are too scared to stand up, rightfully so. If

you speak out, you could be fired or worse you could hurt your company. Unfortunately, this

cycle will continue until many media organizations in South Africa decide to fight this battle

together.

- The 80 employees we discussed being fired was not from SuperSport, but from FIFA
when we discussed the problem of Match Fixing in South African Sport.
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