Television access at risk for millions of South Africans as analogue switch-off date is contested

Source: © 123rf 123rf The legal bid of eTV, Media Monitoring Africa and SOS Support public broadcasting continues today, Wednesday 19 March in the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria

The three applicants want the analogue switch-off date of 31 March declared invalidated and stopped.

They say that if the deadline is not halted then millions of South Africans will be denied access to television.

In its heads of arguments to the court, eTV says, “Government failed to consult on the Analogue Switch-off (ASO) date before deciding to set 31 March 2025 as the date.

“On 28 November 2024, the minister informed stakeholders that the previous ASO date of 31 December 2024 would not be extended.

“On 5 December 2025, the minister told stakeholders that the deadline was now 31 March 2025. There was no consultation in between.

“Stakeholders were never advised that government was considering an extension to 31 March nor were they asked to comment on whether 31 March was a viable and reasonable date before a final decision was taken.”

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14 million South Africans without TV

SOS national coordinator Uyanda Siyotula has stated that the deadline implementation will lead to the rights of millions of poor people being infringed upon.

“Lawyers were able to point out to the court that it was important for us to be consulted following the Constitutional Court ruling.

“But I think the other important thing is that they pointed out the fact that the rights of many poor and marginalised people are going to be infringed should this analogue switch-off go ahead as planned on the 31 March,” states Siyotula.

Media Monitoring Africa director William Bird adds to this saying that this is about an ongoing and collective inability to make sure that the pure and indigents have access to television.

“What we know is that 28.5 % of South African audiences still rely exclusively on free-to-air services to access television, so had they gone ahead with this decision, you would have that entire group of people (4.5 million households) cut off from television completely.

“That would have been completely unacceptable because of course these are the poorest of the poor.”

The applicants have said that almost 14 million people will not have television if the deadline is not halted.

Impact on public broadcaster

SABC’s group CEO Nomsa Chabeli has warned that this transition will cut off four million households.

These households have no access to satellite platforms or set-top boxes, impacting the public broadcaster’s sustainability.

“The SABC, even though it is a public broadcaster, if you look at the public mandate, it is self-funded and not funded by the government,” says Chabeli.

When the SABC’s ability to deliver to audiences and audiences to advertisers, which is where the revenue comes in, is compromised, then its public mandate is compromised.

“We still have about 4.4 million households that are not part of any satellite platform etc. that have not received their set-top boxes, therefore it means that if it does go ahead on 31 March, we are in a situation where the SABC is about to lose 27% of their audiences and that immediately translates into revenue losses,” explains Chabeli.

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Insufficient consultation

On Wednesday 18 March the three applicants argued that the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies did not sufficiently consult with them on the scheduled migration expected to take place at the end of this month.

They have challenged the deadline because:

• It will breach a promise made by the government as the decision was taken without rational consultation.

• The government is nowhere near completing its process of rolling out set-top boxes (STBs) to all who need and have been promised by the deadline.

The analogue switch-off will mean that the country will halt all analogue television broadcasting.