South Africa’s digital TV headache

Communications minister Solly Malatsi has assured that he will make a decision about the switch-off of old analogue TV signals long before the current 31 December 2024 deadline.

“One thing I will not do is to leave the pronouncement on that decision very late and very close to that deadline because it just creates unhealthy and unnecessary anxiety in the sector,” Malatsi said in a recent interview with MyBroadband.

However, the minister said he is not yet ready to announce anything regarding the deadline for the switch-off of South Africa’s remaining analogue terrestrial television signals.

“What we need is to do an evidence-based assessment of our readiness for that deadline because there are two things to balance here: one is the fact that it’s a longstanding deadline, and the other is the reality that it has a very serious impact,” Malatsi said.

Malatsi said switching off analogue transmissions could prevent many South African households from watching TV, negatively impacting E-tv and the SABC.

“There is a very genuine concern about the approximately 400,000 households that are still on analogue and whether we can migrate them to digital before December,” said Malatsi.

“I have a responsibility to ensure that we don’t leave South Africans behind.”

Ensuring that potentially impacted households are digitally migrated involves verifying that they have access to a decoder-like set-top box that allows old TV sets to receive the new digital TV signal.

Households that have switched to streaming or have installed a satellite TV service such as DStv, Openview, or Freevision are also considered digitally migrated.

The minister said that his office’s decisions must be informed by evidence of what is in the country’s best interest.

“But we can’t have a situation where this is going to be an unanswered question in perpetuity. We can’t have that, and I won’t allow that,” said Malatsi

“At this stage, I am engaging with the broadcasters who will mostly be affected by this — the SABC and eMedia.”

He also said that it was important that there must be good faith when deadlines are set and industry players agree on them.

“They must comply so that we don’t engage in things wherein we agree one time on things and then a few months down the line we find other creative ways of filibustering the process,” Malatsi said.

“Those are the considerations that I’m faced with.”

Switching off South Africa’s old analogue television transmitters is the last step of an over twenty-year project to migrate to newer, digital terrestrial TV (DTT) technology.

The switch-off will free up valuable radio frequency spectrum that mobile operators could use for 4G, 5G, and next-generation cellular network deployments.

Openview and E-tv owner eMedia has hauled a former Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies to court over an earlier switch-off date, arguing that many indigent households will be left without access to TV.

eMedia, the SABC, and several free-to-air community broadcasters have also warned that this would slash their audience figures and hurt their advertising revenue.

Following eMedia’s legal challenge, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies renewed its drive to distribute DTT set-top boxes (STBs) to needy households.

Concerningly, eMedia recently told the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) that these efforts weren’t good enough.

“Even these further attempts have been unsuccessful given a variety of factors relating to the registration and installation processes as well as the availability of STBs,” eMedia stated.

“These challenges remain, and eMedia holds the view that they will never be resolved.”

eMedia’s argument appears to be setting up yet another legal challenge — this time for analogue TV to exist perpetually alongside DTT for the foreseeable future.

“By 31 December 2024, it is likely that more than four million households will still be reliant on analogue television to receive free-to-air channels,” it said in a submission to Icasa.

“The announcement of 31 December 2024 as the analogue switch-off date is premature as it will deny these millions access to television.”

While eMedia demands that more households be migrated to DTT before agreeing to a 31 December deadline, it also stopped paying for digital TV transmissions in some areas.

This has resulted in state-owned signal distributor Sentech switching off those transmitters and viewers writing to MyBroadband to complain.

Asked about this, eMedia said all broadcasters had opted not to switch on uneconomical DTT transmitters.

At the same time, the SABC has issued a tender for someone to build it a satellite TV service. The bidder must use its own capital to build the platform.

“The SABC wants to mitigate the devastating effect on our audiences of the analogue switch-off on 31 December 2024,” it stated.

This raises the question — how much of eMedia and the SABC’s remaining objections to the digital migration are because of how much Sentech charges for DTT transmissions?

When asked about this, Malatsi said he doesn’t believe Sentech’s fees were the fundamental issue of this fight.

“I think some of the broadcasters see opportunities on different issues in order to push their self-interest,” he said.

“For me, it’s important not to be distracted by the frills and to focus on the substance of the issue with regard to analogue switch-off,” Malatsi said.

That substance is the factors he mentioned: perform an evidence-based assessment, ensure enough has been done to help vulnerable South Africans migrate, and ensure the sustainability of broadcasters is not harmed.