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Mixed signals from SA's 'shambolic' digital migration

17 Apr 2012

Communications Minister Dina Pule has announced in government-run print adverts about a process of "digital migration", during which the South African TV industry and broadcasters all have to move from terrestrial signals to digital terrestrial television (DTT) - similar to the rest of the world.

South African TV viewers - who are largely in the dark about the process - are expected to pay R700 for a set top box (STB) and a new antenna, or lose their free TV signals, The Witness reports.

According to the print adverts, people who don't pay for the STB during the "digital migration" - a process which Rhodes University's Media and Information Society Professor Jane Duncan calls "shambolic" - will lose their free-to air-TV signals when the terrestrial signals are switched off. The South African government will subsidise only a portion of the cost for the "poorest of the poor" households, but no plan has yet been announced of how it will work in practice.

According to The Witness, while several countries successfully completed the process long ago, South Africa - the first country on the continent to start the process - is lagging far behind several African nations, islands and the rest of the world in the digital migration process. The launch has been delayed several times. Last year the government moved the launch date to April 2012. Now it has been pushed back again to September. The final international deadline is June 2015.

Read the full article on www.witness.co.za.