Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications and digital technologies is recommending that regulators consider charging a levy to digital content platforms in order to support independent podcasters in South Africa.
This follows a roundtable discussion between parliament, regulators, creators, platforms and civil society which was held on 24 March.
The engagement centred around podcast regulation and how to best support the growing industry.
Committee explores funding for creators
Presenting a summary of the draft report on the roundtable during a meeting on Friday, content advisor to the committee Dr Jacob Medupe said one of the pillars of the March discussion was economic enablement and industry growth.
Regarding this, the committee’s recommendations include establishing a national content fund and charging over-the-top platforms (streaming services such as Netflix) and other digital platforms a community media levy.
The funding from the levy would be ringfenced for independent and community content creators.
The recommendation to establish a fund slightly echoed Build One South Africa leader Mmusi Maimane’s call to find R1 billion to fund creators in the country.
“We need a round table discussion about the funding of podcasters and TikTok creators. Let us find R1 billion for creators,” Maimane posted on X, a day before the scheduled roundtable.
“We also need to understand why TikTok is not paying South African creators. Let’s use parliament to build productivity and creativity in the youth of South Africa. These young people could end with Netflix deals, Amazon Prime deals, and reduce unemployment in South Africa.”
Infrastructure, data and access
The committee’s also recommended allocating a portion of digital advertising spent directly to podcasters, as is the case with community radio set-asides, and investing in incubators, skills development and mentorship programmes – particularly in rural and township communities.
“Some of these things will be some of the best practices that are out there in the world,” Medupe said.
During the roundtable engagement, concerns were raised about infrastructure availability, and the cost of data and devices.
To mitigate that, the draft report recommends data and device costs be reduced, promoting infrastructure sharing among network providers – especially in underserved communities – and exploring grants, tax incentives or low-interest loans for equipment and working capital.
Other recommendations
The committee also recommended the following:
- Amending existing legislation rather than creating new laws;
- Avoiding licensing or prior permission requirements for creators;
- Establishing a single, centralised complaints entry point for online harms, routing cases to the appropriate regulator or self-regulating body;
- Promoting audience advisories without restricting adult content;
- Prioritising safeguards against hate speech, incitement of violence and exploitation;
- Developing immediate policy guidelines on AI-generated content;
- Integrating education on freedom of expression, online harms and media literacy into schools’ curricula; and
- Supporting training on ethical content creation.
The report has not yet been adopted by the committee and remains a draft for now.
