Public Service Media Symposium Report

South Africa’s public service broadcaster, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), remains a primary source of news, information and cultural representation for millions, yet it faces an unsustainable funding model, repeated governance crises and growing competition from digital platforms. This report draws on a reflexive thematic analysis of the 2025 Annual Public Service Media (PSM) Symposium, convened by the SOS: Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, and approaches public service media as democratic infrastructure rather than a failing commercial enterprise. It examines how participants – including broadcasters, regulators, activists and policy experts – wrestled with six interconnected themes, with particular attention to debates over the SABC’s democratic role, the politics of funding and austerity, and the changing influence of digital and pay-TV platforms. These themes reveal that questions of independence, sustainability and digital transformation are inseparable, coming together most clearly in contested proposals for licence fees, levies and new forms of public subsidy. The report traces patterns across five hours of conversation and debate, then places these symposium insights into dialogue with SOS’s earlier work – particularly the 2024 Discussion Document on public service broadcasting remit, funding and governance, alongside the 2023 SOS Vision Document – and wider African and international scholarship. Drawing on this combined evidence base, it outlines design principles for a South African approach that can stabilise public service media while protecting editorial independence. It also considers what civil-society convenings can and cannot achieve as spaces for rethinking media policy in a deeply unequal, platform-dominated democracy.

Read the report here:

https://soscoalition.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Symposium-Report-final.pdf