Multichoice SA Sets Aside R80 Million For Employees

The national lockdown currently underway in South Africa doesn’t exempt people working in the creative industry and with production coming to a halt, Multichoice has announced a list of measures they will be implementing to help cushion industry players during these tough times.

R80 million fund

Multichoice stated that they’ve set aside R80 million to ensure that “current productions are able to pay full salaries of cast, crew, and creatives for the months of March and April”. They hope that by May the worst disruptions would’ve passed and the video industry will be getting back on its feet.

The need to secure salaries of our creatives goes a long way in creating income stability for them and their families. We believe this to be critical for the industry and in our view simply the right thing to do.
Multichoice blog post

An online learning platform

Apart from the salaries, Multichoice Talent Factory will be launching an “online learning portal” to support 40 000+ industry members. The intention of these classes is to help creatives continue working on their craft even during the period of government-mandated isolation.

Supporting freelancers

Finally MultiChoice, also shared that they will guarantee incomes of freelancers working on SuperSport productions – since they can’t work as well with most if not all sporting events being put on hold for the foreseeable future.

Our main concern is to ensure as much as possible that we secure the incomes of creatives, cast and crew over this period. We want to ensure that they and their families are not negatively impacted as work has come to a standstill.