The Majority of South Africans will miss the World Cup Cricket Final

The South African public will miss out on the historic World Cup Cricket Final

Johannesburg - The Proteas are through to a World Cup cricket final for the first time in history, but the majority of the South African public will not get to see it.

Like many other major sporting events, MultiChoice has tied up the exclusive rights to the T20 World Cup cricket tournament, including pay TV rights and free-to-air rights.

Although MultiChoice cannot utilise the free-to-air rights, because it does not have a free-to-air license, it has not sublicensed the free-to-air rights, to the World Cup T20 cricket to either the SABC or e.tv.

Khalik Sherrif CEO of eMedia says that MultiChoice’s conduct in this regard is part of an ongoing pattern of conduct which is the subject of various proceedings before the

Competition Authorities in South Africa.

“We were approached at the last possible minute by Multichoice just before the T20 tournament was due to commence, which made it impossible for us to secure the rights. “ 

“Not only has Multichoice not sub-licensed any of the free-to-air operators to broadcast the T20 World Cup cricket, but they have also deliberately chosen to flout a recent order we obtained from the Competition Tribunal against them concerning sub-licensing arrangements with the SABC. This abusive conduct cannot be allowed to continue, as Multichoice seems to believe that they can act with impunity. We will be filing contempt proceedings against MultiChoice with the Competition Appeal Court during the course of today.

The real losers unfortunately are the South African sporting public.