Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg has dismissed an urgent application brought by eMedia, the parent company of e.tv, over the broadcast rights of the Rugby World Cup.
eMedia had hauled MultiChoice and the SABC to court over its inability to broadcast matches on its satellite TV service, OpenView.
At the heart of eMedia’s case is that SuperSport is preventing the SABC from showing the World Cup via the public broadcaster’s channels on OpenView.
The SABC clinched limited rights to broadcast selected games in a last-minute deal at the start of the global rugby showpiece.
Judge Rean Strydom dismissed the case over a lack of urgency.
Advocate Nick Ferreira for eMedia argued the application must be decided this week, as the Springboks’ quarter-final was due to be played this weekend.
“If the application is not decided before that date, the opportunity for affected viewers to see those matches will be lost,” Ferreira said.
He told the court the case was about whether it was permissible for SuperSport to prevent the SABC from complying with its contractual and statutory obligations to ensure all SABC viewers, including those who view SABC 2 using an OpenView decoder, could watch the World Cup on that channel.
Advocate Paul Farlam SC for the SABC argued the public broadcaster would be prejudiced if it was forced to allow OpenView to broadcast the games, as that would result in it being in clear breach of the sublicensing agreement, and SuperSport would cancel it.
He said SuperSport had already confirmed its stance on the matter and the SABC would not want to risk losing its sublicense.
Advocate Kate Hofmeyer SC for MultiChoice and SuperSport held there was no justification for an urgent application by eMedia and labelled any urgency as self-created.
She said eMedia had approached the court, disgruntled with the content of the SABC’s rights under the sublicence agreement.
Hofmeyer argued SuperSport purchased the licence at great expense, saying it was willing to pay a substantial amount of money for the licence because it gave it exclusive rights to broadcast the matches.
In its papers, the SABC argued should SuperSport seek an order invalidating its sublicense agreement, the consequences would be disastrous for the SABC, the sponsors who assisted it in obtaining the rights, and, crucially, the millions of South Africans who would be deprived of the chance to see more Springbok matches.
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