South Africa’s R1.2 billion TV signal problem

Extending the analogue TV switch-off deadline in South Africa for a year could cost the country between R90 million and R167 million.

A major advocate for extending the deadline, eMedia, said it wouldn’t consider contributing to these costs.

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) revealed that running digital and analogue TV signals simultaneously cost South Africa roughly R1.23 billion over the past decade.

It also highlighted that no funding had been allocated for this purpose, known as dual illumination, for the 2024/25 financial year.

eMedia told MyBroadband that the government has always been responsible for funding dual illumination, not the broadcasters.

Regarding dual illumination costs for 2024/25, the DCDT and USAASA have approached the National Treasury to reprioritise R140 million from USAF funds to cover the shortfall for the financial year.

The current analogue TV switch-off deadline is 31 December 2024. However, many players have protested this deadline, which is still up for debate.

Free-to-air broadcasters like the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), E-tv, and community broadcasters want the deadline extended or scrapped.

They argue that the analogue switch-off can cause them to lose audience numbers, which, in turn, can hurt their bottom line.

This is because some households have yet to receive the required set-top box (STB) to receive digital TV signals, and these viewers will be unable to watch TV once analogue signals are switched off.

In a recent meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies, the SABC requested an extension until the end of 2025.

While eMedia agrees that the deadline should be moved, it doesn’t think a 12-month extension is enough.

“We do not think even 12 months is sufficient to migrate the remaining analogue households,” it told MyBroadband.

South Africa plans to switch off 195 analogue transmitters by the deadline, which has already deactivated 21.

The DCDT highlighted a challenge with distributing STBs before the deadline. It said roughly 469,000 households have yet to have theirs installed because many have missing details or incomplete addresses.

“Data integrity issues have negatively impacted the rate of decoder installations towards achieving a minimum of the 90% threshold needed to secure authorisation from broadcasters,” it said.

The Department of Communications and Digital Technologies provided a breakdown of dual illumination costs over the past 10 years.

In July 2024, eMedia CEO Khalik Sherrif described digital terrestrial television (DTT) as having failed in South Africa. At the time, he said roughly four million households were at risk of being left behind.

“As a business, we understand that analogue must go someday. In fact, it must go as soon as it can,” said Sherrif

“Unfortunately, in South Africa, more than four million households still receive analogue broadcasting.”

“Some of them will require state assistance. Some of them will probably end up digitally migrating themselves,” he added.

He acknowledged that eMedia doesn’t expect all households to be migrated before the switch off. However, they want the government to reduce the figure to one million households.

“Our condition is simply clear. When you move all these people across, and we’re happy to switch off. Then it is worth our while as a business that relies on that market,” he said.

“We are free-to-air. These are the people who loyally look at what we do. They are our customers. They are the people that make up our numbers.”

“We can’t ignore them. Nor can the state ignore them,” added Sherrif.

He noted that the broadcaster had already switched off several sites on its own accord. These were mainly uneconomical sites servicing less than 5,000 households.