State-owned broadcasting sign distribution firm Sentech has a bit over two months to distribute and set up 220 000 set-top bins to qualifying indigent households earlier than the brand new analogue tv switch-off deadline of 31 March 2025.
The brand new deadline was set by communications minister Solly Malatsi in December, extending the switch-off by three months – largely to permit extra time for government-subsidised set-top bins to be distributed.
In response to Sentech, it’s reliant on data from the Common Service and Entry Company of South Africa (Usaasa) to hold out the mandate.
“The inventory is recorded on Usaasa’s stability sheet. Sentech is the appointed implementing company answerable for the distribution of set-top bins and offering mission administration providers,” Sentech mentioned in response to questions from TechCentral.
“The distribution of set-top bins depends on availability of the registration particulars of beneficiaries. After a beneficiary has been vetted, the small print are forwarded to Sentech, which then appoints installers to undertake the set up.”
Regardless of Sentech’s involvement, an Usaasa spokeswoman has confirmed to TechCentral that the company stays answerable for funding the mission, together with the procurement of set-top bins in addition to paying for his or her warehousing and set up.
Free-to-air menace
In response to a press release by Malatsi in December, some 467 000 households have registered for the federal government’s set-top field subsidy programme. It’s unclear whether or not the 220 000 models in Sentech’s possession signify the stability of the 467 000 households nonetheless requiring set up or whether or not there’s a hole between the variety of registered households and units obtainable.
Even when all 467 000 households registered are serviced in time, a bigger drawback exists: talking at public hearings referred to as by Icasa for the communications regulator’s inquiry into the overview of the digital migration laws of 2012 in Pretoria final June, eMedia Holdings CEO Khalik Sherrif mentioned some 4.5 million South African households would nonetheless be reliant on analogue tv to obtain free-to-air channels after the analogue switch-off as a result of they might not afford the {hardware} that will enable them to entry digital broadcasts.
Learn: Analogue TV switch-off ‘should not marginalise the poor
Sherrif mentioned the lack of a sizeable portion of the TV viewership base could be dangerous to the livelihoods of staff at each eMedia and the SABC. Media watchdogs Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and the SOS Coalition echoed Sherrif’s sentiments, describing the state of affairs as an “existential disaster” for the general public broadcaster.
“To chop its viewers on this context is principally taking away its solely income. This can have penalties on the hundreds of jobs on the SABC, and we face a attainable extinction occasion for the general public broadcaster,” mentioned MMA govt director William Chook on the Icasa hearings.
The menace to the SABC comes as the general public broadcaster faces a funding disaster. After withdrawing the contentious SABC Invoice from parliament final November (now the topic of a feud between the Democratic Alliance and the ANC), Malatsi cited the invoice’s weak spot at addressing the SABC’s funding mannequin as one among his causes for doing so.
“We have now to get the query across the funding mannequin for the SABC proper. There may be broad acknowledgement that the invoice because it stands doesn’t reply that, so why proceed with it?” Malatsi mentioned in an interview with TechCentral final November.
Learn: Solly Malatsi units new deadline for analogue switch-off
Whereas some may even see the distribution of set-top bins as the main hurdle to the profitable implementation of digital migration in South Africa, others – like eMedia’s Sherrif – imagine authorities’s delays in implementing digital broadcasting have put the nation ready the place it could must leapfrog the expertise. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
Get breaking information from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Enroll right here.
