South Africa announces switch-off date for analogue TV — 13 years late

Communications minister Mondli Gungubele has announced that South Africa will finally switch off analogue TV broadcasts on 31 December 2024.

He also announced an intermediate deadline of 31 July 2024, where all analogue TV services broadcasting on frequencies above 694 MHz must be switched off.

These new dates represent yet another delay and missed deadline after the minister’s predecessor, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, announced that 31 March 2023 was the final switch-off date.

The migration affects households that don’t receive their television signal via satellite and use a regular roof antenna or “bunny ears”.

Digital terrestrial TV promises higher quality broadcasts while consuming much less radio frequency spectrum.

The switch-off will free critical radio frequency spectrum mobile operators could use to improve network coverage and capacity in South Africa.

Some of this spectrum was already auctioned off last year.

However, according to a court settlement between industry regulator Icasa and certain network operators, National Treasury will only receive its money once cellular carriers can actually use it.

South Africa initially planned to switch all analogue TV signals off by November 2011.

A circus of legal, political, and logistical issues pushed that back by over 13 years.

Most recently, this included E-tv bringing legal action to block the switch-off over fears it would lose many viewers, hurting its bottom line. The SABC expressed similar concerns, but Ntshavheni swiftly chastised the state broadcaster and brought it back in line.

In an announcement published in the government gazette on Thursday, Gungubele said that all remaining analogue broadcasting services should temporarily be accommodated below 694 MHz after 31 July 2023.

“All digital broadcasting services operating above the 694 MHz frequency must also be returned to operate on frequencies below 694 MHz in order to clear broadcasting services from the 694 to 862 MHz frequency band,” he stated.

“Furthermore, I set 31 December 2024 as the end of the dual illumination period and the date to switch-off all the remaining analogue broadcasting services below the 694 MHz frequency.”

Dual illumination refers to analogue and digital TV broadcasts running simultaneously, which is what’s currently happening at significant cost to state signal distributor Sentech.

The table below summarizes the various analogue switch-off deadlines South Africa has had since 2011, including the ministers responsible at the time.

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