The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) said in 2010 it would show the service at the Vatican every year but has now changed that plan just four years later.
In the country a campaign against the move has started with a national newspaper calling on the decision to be over turned.
The Southern Cross, run by operated the bishops' conferences of southern Africa, said it was the only significant Catholic event on TV.
In an editorial the paper said: "The cavalier way in which the SABC has decided to cancel the only significant Catholic event it covers in the year indicates an unacceptable hostility towards our Church by a publicly funded organ of the state."