Television in South Africa
Encyclopedia
Television in South Africa was first introduced in 1976. Despite being the most economically advanced country in Africa
, South Africa
was relatively late in introducing television
broadcasting to its population.
, viewed television as a potential threat to its control of the broadcasting media, even though the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation
(SABC) had a virtual monopoly on radio
broadcasting. It also saw the new medium as a threat to Afrikaans
and the Afrikaner
volk, giving undue prominence to English
, and creating unfair competition for the Afrikaans press.
Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd compared television with atom bombs and poison gas, claiming that "they are modern things, but that does not mean they are desirable. The government has to watch for any dangers to the people, both spiritual and physical."
Dr Albert Hertzog, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at the time, said that TV would come to South Africa "over [his] dead body," denouncing it as "a miniature bioscope [cinema] over which parents would have no control." He also argued that "South Africa would have to import films showing race mixing; and advertising would make [non-white] Africans dissatisfied with their lot." The new medium was then regarded as the "devil’s own box, for disseminating communism and immorality".
However, many white South Africans, including Afrikaners, did not share Hertzog's reactionary views, and regarded the hostility towards what he called "the little black box" as absurd. When Neil Armstrong
became the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969, South Africa was one of the few countries unable to watch the event live, prompting one newspaper to remark that "The moon film has proved to be the last straw… The situation is becoming a source of embarrassment for the country." In response to public demand, the government arranged limited viewings of the landing, in which people were able to watch recorded footage for fifteen minutes.
The opposition United Party
pointed out that less economically advanced countries in Africa had already introduced television, while neighbouring Southern
Rhodesia
had introduced it as early as 1961.
In the absence of television in South Africa, a radio version of the British television series The Avengers
was produced by Sonovision for SABC's commercial network, Springbok Radio, in 1972. While it only ran for eighteen months, the radio series proved highly popular.
and Afrikaans
, aimed at white audiences, and another, known as TV Bantu, aimed at black viewers., but when television was finally introduced, there was only one channel. Experimental broadcasts in the main cities began on 5 May 1975, before nationwide service commenced on 5 January 1976.
In common with most of Western Europe, South Africa used the PAL
system for colour television, being only the second terrestrial television service in Africa to launch with a colour-only service. (Zanzibar
in Tanzania
was the first territory in Africa to do so in 1973.) The Government, advised by SABC technicians, took the view that colour television would have to be available so as to avoid a costly migration from black-and-white
broadcasting technology.
Initially, the TV service was funded entirely through a licence fee as in the UK
, but advertising began in 1978.
In 1981, a second channel was introduced, broadcasting in African languages such as Zulu
, Xhosa
, Sotho and Tswana
. The main channel, then called TV1, was divided evenly between English and Afrikaans. Subtitling on TV was almost non-existent, the assumption being that people had no desire to watch programmes in languages they did not speak.
In 1986, the SABC's monopoly was challenged by the launch of a subscription-based service known as M-Net
, backed by a consortium of newspaper publishers. However, as part of its licensing restrictions, it could not broadcast news programmes, which were still the preserve of the SABC, although M-Net started broadcasting a current affairs programme "Carte Blanche" in 1988. As the state-controlled broadcaster, the SABC was accused of bias towards the apartheid regime, giving only limited coverage to opposition politicians.
started a boycott of programme sales to South Africa. This, combined with a similar boycott by Australia
, meant that South African TV was dominated by programming from the United States
, and it was only after the end of apartheid that the boycott was lifted and non-US programming became much more widely available.
The availability of US programming was partly the result of a co-operative venture with Universal Studios
in 1980 where an episode of Knight Rider was filmed in the Namib desert
in South West Africa
, and local acting talent was involved in the filming. As a direct consequence, the SABC received the right to broadcast in American programming syndicate
d from Universal Studios/MCA
, and through them purchased material from other studios.
Many imported programmes were dubbed
into Afrikaans, the first being the British series The Sweeney
, known in Afrikaans as Blitspatrollie. However, in order to accommodate English speakers, the SABC began to simulcast
the original soundtrack of US series such as Miami Vice
and Beverly Hills, 90210
on an FM radio service called Radio 2000. This also applied to German
and Dutch
programmes dubbed in Afrikaans, such as the Dutch soap opera Medisch Centrum West, known as Hospitaal Wes Amsterdam.
, a co-production between the Imaginarium and Canada
's CHUM
, has been broadcast in over 20 countries, including Japan, France, Korea, and in the US on the SciFi Channel. M-Net
's soap opera Egoli: Place of Gold
, has been shown in 43 African countries, and has even been exported to Venezuela
, where it has been dubbed in Spanish
. The drama series Shaka Zulu, based on the true story of the Zulu warrior King Shaka
, was shown around the world in the 1980s, but this was only possible because the SABC had licensed the series to a US distributor. The Zulu-language comedy 'Sgudi 'Snaysi
achieved SABC's highest viewing figures in the late 1980s, and was shown in Zimbabwe
and Swaziland
.
F.W. de Klerk
, the SABC's news coverage moved towards being more objective, although many feared that once the African National Congress
came to power, the SABC would revert to type and serve the government of the day. However, the SABC now also carried CNN International
's TV news bulletins, thereby giving South African viewers new sources of international news.
On 4 February 1996, two years after the ANC came to power, the SABC reorganised its three TV channels, so as to be more representative of different language groups. This resulted in the downgrading of Afrikaans' status by reducing its airtime from 50 per cent to 15 per cent, a move that alienated many Afrikaans speakers.
4 saw the introduction of Ku band
direct-broadcast satellite broadcasting services on 2 October 1995, soon after Multichoice
launched DStv
. Two years later the SABC launched its ill-fated satellite channels, AstraPlus and AstraSport which were intended to catapult the corporation into the pay-tv market called AstraSat but a lack of financial backers and initial insistence on using analogue technology as opposed to digital technology resulted in failure.
The SABC's monopoly on free-to-air terrestrial television was broken with the introduction of privately-owned channel e.tv
in 1998. e.tv also provided the first local television news service outside of the SABC stable, although M-Net
's parent company, Multichoice, offers services such as CNN
, BBC World
and Sky News
via direct-to-home satellite as part of its paid offering.
The first 24-hour local business channel, CNBC Africa
was launched in 2007 with eight hours of local programming and the remainder pulled from other CNBC affiliates. CNBC Africa competes with Summit, a business television station owned by media group Avusa, which broadcasts only during evening prime time. Both stations are available only on the Multichoice direct-to-home platform, although the inclusion of CNBC Africa in the offering of new satellite players seems a near certainty.
In November 2007 regulators announced the award of four new broadcast licences after a process that saw 18 applications. The successful applicants were Walking on Water
, a dedicated Christian service, On Digital Media, a broad-spectrum entertainment offering, e-Sat, a satellite service from e.tv and Telkom Media
, a company 66% owned by telecommunications operator Telkom. The Multichoice licence was renewed at the same time.
E-Sat decided not to launch services but rather adopt a content provider business model. E-Sat launced E-News, a 24 hour news channel, in 2008 on the Multichoice platform. Telkom Media decided in early 2009 not to pursue the launch of television services as its parent company Telkom did not believe adequate investment returns could be achieved. The remaining licencees were expected to be operational by late 2009 and all will operate direct-to-home services using standard small aperture satellite dishes. Telkom Media was also granted an IPTV
licence.
Another model of public service television, called community television, was introduced to South Africa by legislation known as the IBA Act of 1993. The act enabled three tiers of broadcasting, these being public, commercial and community. While many community radio stations sprang up from that time, community television was enabled only for temporary event licenses of up to four weeks in duration. It was only after the national broadcasting regulator, then known as ICASA, promulgated its Position Paper on Community Television in 2004, that longer term licenses of up to one year were enabled.
The first community television station to get a one-year license was http://www.sowetotv.org.za Soweto TV in 2007. The station serves the southern Johannesburg region and principally Soweto
, it is also available by satellite on the Multichoice platform. The second community television licensee was http://www.capetowntv.org Cape Town TV (CTV), first licensed in 2008. The station serves the greater Cape Town metro from a single transmitter on the Tygerberg site and reaches a monthly audience of about 1.3 million viewers.
Community television stations must, by law, a) serve a particular community; b) be run by a non-profit organisation; and c) involve members of the community in the selection and production of programming. Presently, in 2010, longer term "class" licenses of up to seven years in duration have been enabled by the legislation, but issues of frequency availability are complicated by the migration to digital broadcasting
. This led ICASA declaring a moratorium on considering new community TV licence applications in March 2010. To date only Soweto TV has a class licence, while Cape Town TV has applied for one.
On Digital Media announced on the 18 March 2010 that it would be launching TOP-TV in May 2010 as a second pay satellite TV competitor.
Top-TV would offer a total of 55 channels with 25 channels in its basic offering.
television
implementation in South Africa
was a satellite
-based system launched by pay-TV operator Multichoice
in 1995. On 22 February 2007 the South African government announced that the country's public TV operators would be broadcasting in digital by 1 November 2008, followed by a three year dual-illumination period which would end on 1 November 2011.
On 11 August 2008 the Department of Communications announced its Digital Migration Policy. The policy will govern the switchover from analogue to digital
transmission, and states that the Department will provide funding to the national signal distributor Sentech
to begin the migration process according to the published timetable. The timetable is phased as follows:
During the period 2008-2011, Sentech will transmit both analogue and digital signals in what is known as a dual-illumination period
. Households not already using digital televisions will need to purchase a set-top box
(STB) in order to continue receiving a television signal. The government plans to subsidise poorer households by 70% of the purchase price of the STB. The STBs will be manufactured locally by a number of different South African companies, the largest of which is Altech, a major local electronics company that also manufactures the STBs for Multichoice.
The government's stated goal is to have digital television as well as mobile television
up and running in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup
tournament to be hosted by South Africa.
's DStv
is the main digital satellite television provider in sub-Saharan Africa, broadcasting principally in English
, but also in Portuguese
, German
and Afrikaans
.
In May 2010 On Digital Media launched the TopTV
satellite television service. It offers a number of South African and international television channels and broadcasts principally in English
, but also in Hindi, Portuguese
and Afrikaans
.
Dubai-based Strong Technologies offers MyTVAfrica which offers programming to sub-Saharan Africa, although it is not targeted specifically to the South African market. Great Media Limited offers the Free2view
service, which has no recurring subscription fees.
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
was relatively late in introducing television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
broadcasting to its population.
Opposition to introduction
The country's white minority government, under the National PartyNational Party (South Africa)
The National Party is a former political party in South Africa. Founded in 1914, it was the governing party of the country from 4 June 1948 until 9 May 1994. Members of the National Party were sometimes known as Nationalists or Nats. Its policies included apartheid, the establishment of a...
, viewed television as a potential threat to its control of the broadcasting media, even though the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation
South African Broadcasting Corporation
The South African Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned broadcaster in South Africa and provides 18 radio stations as well as 3 television broadcasts to the general public.-Early years:Radio broadcasting began in South Africa in 1923...
(SABC) had a virtual monopoly on radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
broadcasting. It also saw the new medium as a threat to Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
and the Afrikaner
Afrikaner
Afrikaners are an ethnic group in Southern Africa descended from almost equal numbers of Dutch, French and German settlers whose native tongue is Afrikaans: a Germanic language which derives primarily from 17th century Dutch, and a variety of other languages.-Related ethno-linguistic groups:The...
volk, giving undue prominence to English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, and creating unfair competition for the Afrikaans press.
Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd compared television with atom bombs and poison gas, claiming that "they are modern things, but that does not mean they are desirable. The government has to watch for any dangers to the people, both spiritual and physical."
Dr Albert Hertzog, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at the time, said that TV would come to South Africa "over [his] dead body," denouncing it as "a miniature bioscope [cinema] over which parents would have no control." He also argued that "South Africa would have to import films showing race mixing; and advertising would make [non-white] Africans dissatisfied with their lot." The new medium was then regarded as the "devil’s own box, for disseminating communism and immorality".
However, many white South Africans, including Afrikaners, did not share Hertzog's reactionary views, and regarded the hostility towards what he called "the little black box" as absurd. When Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong is an American former astronaut, test pilot, aerospace engineer, university professor, United States Naval Aviator, and the first person to set foot upon the Moon....
became the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969, South Africa was one of the few countries unable to watch the event live, prompting one newspaper to remark that "The moon film has proved to be the last straw… The situation is becoming a source of embarrassment for the country." In response to public demand, the government arranged limited viewings of the landing, in which people were able to watch recorded footage for fifteen minutes.
The opposition United Party
United Party (South Africa)
The United Party was South Africa's ruling political party between 1934 and 1948. It was formed by a merger of most of Prime Minister Barry Hertzog's National Party with the rival South African Party of Jan Smuts, plus the remnants of the Unionist Party...
pointed out that less economically advanced countries in Africa had already introduced television, while neighbouring Southern
Southern Rhodesia
Southern Rhodesia was the name of the British colony situated north of the Limpopo River and the Union of South Africa. From its independence in 1965 until its extinction in 1980, it was known as Rhodesia...
Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
had introduced it as early as 1961.
In the absence of television in South Africa, a radio version of the British television series The Avengers
The Avengers (TV series)
The Avengers is a spy-fi British television series set in the 1960s Britain. The Avengers initially focused on Dr. David Keel and his assistant John Steed . Hendry left after the first series and Steed became the main character, partnered with a succession of assistants...
was produced by Sonovision for SABC's commercial network, Springbok Radio, in 1972. While it only ran for eighteen months, the radio series proved highly popular.
Slow introduction
In 1971, the SABC was finally allowed to introduce a television service. Initially, the proposal was for two television channels, one in EnglishEnglish language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
, aimed at white audiences, and another, known as TV Bantu, aimed at black viewers., but when television was finally introduced, there was only one channel. Experimental broadcasts in the main cities began on 5 May 1975, before nationwide service commenced on 5 January 1976.
In common with most of Western Europe, South Africa used the PAL
PAL
PAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
system for colour television, being only the second terrestrial television service in Africa to launch with a colour-only service. (Zanzibar
Zanzibar
Zanzibar ,Persian: زنگبار, from suffix bār: "coast" and Zangi: "bruin" ; is a semi-autonomous part of Tanzania, in East Africa. It comprises the Zanzibar Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of the mainland, and consists of numerous small islands and two large ones: Unguja , and Pemba...
in Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...
was the first territory in Africa to do so in 1973.) The Government, advised by SABC technicians, took the view that colour television would have to be available so as to avoid a costly migration from black-and-white
Monochrome
Monochrome describes paintings, drawings, design, or photographs in one color or shades of one color. A monochromatic object or image has colors in shades of limited colors or hues. Images using only shades of grey are called grayscale or black-and-white...
broadcasting technology.
Initially, the TV service was funded entirely through a licence fee as in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, but advertising began in 1978.
In 1981, a second channel was introduced, broadcasting in African languages such as Zulu
Zulu language
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority of whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa as well as being understood by over 50% of the population...
, Xhosa
Xhosa language
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said...
, Sotho and Tswana
Tswana language
Tswana or Setswana is a language spoken in Southern Africa by about 4.5 million people. It is a Bantu language belonging to the Niger–Congo language family within the Sotho languages branch of Zone S , and is closely related to the Northern- and Southern Sotho languages, as well as the Kgalagadi...
. The main channel, then called TV1, was divided evenly between English and Afrikaans. Subtitling on TV was almost non-existent, the assumption being that people had no desire to watch programmes in languages they did not speak.
In 1986, the SABC's monopoly was challenged by the launch of a subscription-based service known as M-Net
M-Net
M-Net is a subscription-funded television channel in South Africa, established in 1986 by Naspers....
, backed by a consortium of newspaper publishers. However, as part of its licensing restrictions, it could not broadcast news programmes, which were still the preserve of the SABC, although M-Net started broadcasting a current affairs programme "Carte Blanche" in 1988. As the state-controlled broadcaster, the SABC was accused of bias towards the apartheid regime, giving only limited coverage to opposition politicians.
Imported programming
Owing to South Africa's apartheid policies, the British Actors' Equity AssociationBritish Actors' Equity Association
Equity is the trade union for actors, stage managers and models in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1930 by a group of West End performers....
started a boycott of programme sales to South Africa. This, combined with a similar boycott by Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, meant that South African TV was dominated by programming from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, and it was only after the end of apartheid that the boycott was lifted and non-US programming became much more widely available.
The availability of US programming was partly the result of a co-operative venture with Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
in 1980 where an episode of Knight Rider was filmed in the Namib desert
Namib Desert
The Namib Desert is a desert in Namibia and southwest Angola that forms part of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, the largest game reserve in Africa. The name "Namib" is of Nama origin and means "vast place"...
in South West Africa
South West Africa
South-West Africa was the name that was used for the modern day Republic of Namibia during the earlier eras when the territory was controlled by the German Empire and later by South Africa....
, and local acting talent was involved in the filming. As a direct consequence, the SABC received the right to broadcast in American programming syndicate
Syndicate
A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies or entities formed to transact some specific business, or to promote a common interest or in the case of criminals, to engage in organized crime...
d from Universal Studios/MCA
Music Corporation of America
MCA, Inc. was an American talent agency. Initially starting in the music business, they would next become a dominant force in the film business, and later expanded into the television business...
, and through them purchased material from other studios.
Many imported programmes were dubbed
Dubbing (filmmaking)
Dubbing is the post-production process of recording and replacing voices on a motion picture or television soundtrack subsequent to the original shooting. The term most commonly refers to the substitution of the voices of the actors shown on the screen by those of different performers, who may be...
into Afrikaans, the first being the British series The Sweeney
The Sweeney
The Sweeney is a 1970s British television police drama focusing on two members of the Flying Squad, a branch of the Metropolitan Police specialising in tackling armed robbery and violent crime in London...
, known in Afrikaans as Blitspatrollie. However, in order to accommodate English speakers, the SABC began to simulcast
Simulcast
Simulcast, shorthand for "simultaneous broadcast", refers to programs or events broadcast across more than one medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at the same time. For example, Absolute Radio is simulcast on both AM and on satellite radio, and the BBC's Prom concerts are often...
the original soundtrack of US series such as Miami Vice
Miami Vice
Miami Vice is an American television series produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas as two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami. It ran for five seasons on NBC from 1984–1989...
and Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210
Beverly Hills, 90210 is an American drama series that originally aired from October 4, 1990 to May 17, 2000 on Fox and was produced by Spelling Television in the United States, and subsequently on various networks around the world. It is the first series in the Beverly Hills, 90210 franchise...
on an FM radio service called Radio 2000. This also applied to German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
programmes dubbed in Afrikaans, such as the Dutch soap opera Medisch Centrum West, known as Hospitaal Wes Amsterdam.
Local programming
There are currently many South African-produced programmes which are shown across Africa and around the world. For example, SABC 3's scifi/drama series Charlie JadeCharlie Jade
Charlie Jade is a science fiction television program filmed mainly in Cape Town, South Africa. It stars Jeffrey Pierce in the title role, as a detective from a parallel universe who finds himself trapped in our universe. This is a Canadian and South African co-production filmed in conjunction with...
, a co-production between the Imaginarium and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
's CHUM
CHUM Limited
CHUM Limited was a media company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada from 1945 to 2007. Immediately prior to its acquisition, it held full or joint control of two Canadian television systems — Citytv and A-Channel — comprising 11 local stations, and one CBC Television affiliate, one...
, has been broadcast in over 20 countries, including Japan, France, Korea, and in the US on the SciFi Channel. M-Net
M-Net
M-Net is a subscription-funded television channel in South Africa, established in 1986 by Naspers....
's soap opera Egoli: Place of Gold
Egoli: Place of Gold
Egoli: Place of Gold is a long-running bilingual South African soap opera which first aired on M-Net on 6 April 1992. South African television's first daily soap opera, on 3 December 1999 Egoli became the first South African television program in any genre to reach 2,000 episodes. As of 3 August...
, has been shown in 43 African countries, and has even been exported to Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, where it has been dubbed in Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
. The drama series Shaka Zulu, based on the true story of the Zulu warrior King Shaka
Shaka
Shaka kaSenzangakhona , also known as Shaka Zulu , was the most influential leader of the Zulu Kingdom....
, was shown around the world in the 1980s, but this was only possible because the SABC had licensed the series to a US distributor. The Zulu-language comedy 'Sgudi 'Snaysi
'Sgudi 'Snaysi
Sgudi 'Snaysi is a long-running South African Zulu language television comedy series. Made by Penguin Films and broadcast on SABC, it achieved the highest audience ratings ever for any SABC show....
achieved SABC's highest viewing figures in the late 1980s, and was shown in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
and Swaziland
Swaziland
Swaziland, officially the Kingdom of Swaziland , and sometimes called Ngwane or Swatini, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa, bordered to the north, south and west by South Africa, and to the east by Mozambique...
.
Political change
Following the easing of media censorship under State PresidentState President of South Africa
State President, or Staatspresident in Afrikaans, was the title of South Africa's head of state from 1961 to 1994. The office was established when the country became a republic in 1961, and Queen Elizabeth II ceased to be head of state...
F.W. de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk
Frederik Willem de Klerk , often known as F. W. de Klerk, is the former seventh and last State President of apartheid-era South Africa, serving from September 1989 to May 1994...
, the SABC's news coverage moved towards being more objective, although many feared that once the African National Congress
African National Congress
The African National Congress is South Africa's governing Africanist political party, supported by its tripartite alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions and the South African Communist Party , since the establishment of non-racial democracy in April 1994. It defines itself as a...
came to power, the SABC would revert to type and serve the government of the day. However, the SABC now also carried CNN International
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
's TV news bulletins, thereby giving South African viewers new sources of international news.
On 4 February 1996, two years after the ANC came to power, the SABC reorganised its three TV channels, so as to be more representative of different language groups. This resulted in the downgrading of Afrikaans' status by reducing its airtime from 50 per cent to 15 per cent, a move that alienated many Afrikaans speakers.
New services
The launch of PanAmSatPanAmSat
The former PanAmSat Corporation founded in 1984 by Reynold Anselmo, was a satellite service provider headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut. It operated a fleet of communications satellites used by the entertainment industry, news agencies, internet service providers, government agencies, and...
4 saw the introduction of Ku band
Ku band
The Kμ band is a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum in the microwave range of frequencies. This symbol refers to —in other words, the band directly below the K-band...
direct-broadcast satellite broadcasting services on 2 October 1995, soon after Multichoice
MultiChoice
MultiChoice is a South African company which operates the DStv satellite television service, the main satellite TV service in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was formed out of the subscriber-management branch of the M-Net terrestrial pay TV company, and broadcasts the full range of M-Net channels on the...
launched DStv
DStv
DStv is MultiChoice's multi-channel digital satellite TV service in Africa, launched in 1995. It operates from two satellites over Africa, broadcasting on Ku band via Eutelsat W7 and Intelsat 7 , which only requires a small satellite dish...
. Two years later the SABC launched its ill-fated satellite channels, AstraPlus and AstraSport which were intended to catapult the corporation into the pay-tv market called AstraSat but a lack of financial backers and initial insistence on using analogue technology as opposed to digital technology resulted in failure.
The SABC's monopoly on free-to-air terrestrial television was broken with the introduction of privately-owned channel e.tv
E.tv
e.tv is the fifth terrestrial television channel in South Africa, following three channels operated by the state-owned South African Broadcasting Corporation and the privately owned subscription-funded M-Net, operated by Multichoice...
in 1998. e.tv also provided the first local television news service outside of the SABC stable, although M-Net
M-Net
M-Net is a subscription-funded television channel in South Africa, established in 1986 by Naspers....
's parent company, Multichoice, offers services such as CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, BBC World
BBC World
BBC World News is the BBC's international news and current affairs television channel. It has the largest audience of any BBC channel in the world...
and Sky News
Sky News
Sky News is a 24-hour British and international satellite television news broadcaster with an emphasis on UK and international news stories.The service places emphasis on rolling news, including the latest breaking news. Sky News also hosts localised versions of the channel in Australia and in New...
via direct-to-home satellite as part of its paid offering.
The first 24-hour local business channel, CNBC Africa
CNBC Africa
CNBC Africa is an African television network for Sub-Saharan Africa. It was launched by CNBC and Africa Business News LTD on June 1, 2007. CNBC Africa is headquartered in Sandton, Johannesburg....
was launched in 2007 with eight hours of local programming and the remainder pulled from other CNBC affiliates. CNBC Africa competes with Summit, a business television station owned by media group Avusa, which broadcasts only during evening prime time. Both stations are available only on the Multichoice direct-to-home platform, although the inclusion of CNBC Africa in the offering of new satellite players seems a near certainty.
In November 2007 regulators announced the award of four new broadcast licences after a process that saw 18 applications. The successful applicants were Walking on Water
Walking on water
Jesus' walks on water, or Jesus walking on water, is one of the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels. Accounts of the miracle appear in three Gospels: Matthew 14:22-33, Mark 6:45-52 and...
, a dedicated Christian service, On Digital Media, a broad-spectrum entertainment offering, e-Sat, a satellite service from e.tv and Telkom Media
Telkom Media
Telkom Media is a pay-TV company based in South Africa. It is intended to be the first provider of IPTV services in South Africa.-History:South African fixed-line telephone operator Telkom announced the creation of Telkom Media in August 2006, when it also applied for commercial satellite and...
, a company 66% owned by telecommunications operator Telkom. The Multichoice licence was renewed at the same time.
E-Sat decided not to launch services but rather adopt a content provider business model. E-Sat launced E-News, a 24 hour news channel, in 2008 on the Multichoice platform. Telkom Media decided in early 2009 not to pursue the launch of television services as its parent company Telkom did not believe adequate investment returns could be achieved. The remaining licencees were expected to be operational by late 2009 and all will operate direct-to-home services using standard small aperture satellite dishes. Telkom Media was also granted an IPTV
IPTV
Internet Protocol television is a system through which television services are delivered using the Internet protocol suite over a packet-switched network such as the Internet, instead of being delivered through traditional terrestrial, satellite signal, and cable television formats.IPTV services...
licence.
Another model of public service television, called community television, was introduced to South Africa by legislation known as the IBA Act of 1993. The act enabled three tiers of broadcasting, these being public, commercial and community. While many community radio stations sprang up from that time, community television was enabled only for temporary event licenses of up to four weeks in duration. It was only after the national broadcasting regulator, then known as ICASA, promulgated its Position Paper on Community Television in 2004, that longer term licenses of up to one year were enabled.
The first community television station to get a one-year license was http://www.sowetotv.org.za Soweto TV in 2007. The station serves the southern Johannesburg region and principally Soweto
Soweto
Soweto is a lower-class-populated urban area of the city of Johannesburg in Gauteng, South Africa, bordering the city's mining belt in the south. Its name is an English syllabic abbreviation for South Western Townships...
, it is also available by satellite on the Multichoice platform. The second community television licensee was http://www.capetowntv.org Cape Town TV (CTV), first licensed in 2008. The station serves the greater Cape Town metro from a single transmitter on the Tygerberg site and reaches a monthly audience of about 1.3 million viewers.
Community television stations must, by law, a) serve a particular community; b) be run by a non-profit organisation; and c) involve members of the community in the selection and production of programming. Presently, in 2010, longer term "class" licenses of up to seven years in duration have been enabled by the legislation, but issues of frequency availability are complicated by the migration to digital broadcasting
DVB-T
DVB-T is an abbreviation for Digital Video Broadcasting — Terrestrial; it is the DVB European-based consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital terrestrial television that was first published in 1997 and first broadcast in the UK in 1998...
. This led ICASA declaring a moratorium on considering new community TV licence applications in March 2010. To date only Soweto TV has a class licence, while Cape Town TV has applied for one.
On Digital Media announced on the 18 March 2010 that it would be launching TOP-TV in May 2010 as a second pay satellite TV competitor.
Top-TV would offer a total of 55 channels with 25 channels in its basic offering.
Digital technology
The first digitalDigital
A digital system is a data technology that uses discrete values. By contrast, non-digital systems use a continuous range of values to represent information...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
implementation in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
was a satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
-based system launched by pay-TV operator Multichoice
MultiChoice
MultiChoice is a South African company which operates the DStv satellite television service, the main satellite TV service in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was formed out of the subscriber-management branch of the M-Net terrestrial pay TV company, and broadcasts the full range of M-Net channels on the...
in 1995. On 22 February 2007 the South African government announced that the country's public TV operators would be broadcasting in digital by 1 November 2008, followed by a three year dual-illumination period which would end on 1 November 2011.
On 11 August 2008 the Department of Communications announced its Digital Migration Policy. The policy will govern the switchover from analogue to digital
Digital television
Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...
transmission, and states that the Department will provide funding to the national signal distributor Sentech
Sentech
Sentech is the signal distributor for the South African broadcasting sector. The organisation began operations in 1992 as the signal distributor of the South African Broadcasting Corporation...
to begin the migration process according to the published timetable. The timetable is phased as follows:
- 8 Aug 2008 - MultiChoice launches South Africa’s first HD channel (DStv channel 170)
- 1 Nov 2008 - begin digital transmissions (DTV)
- 31 Dec 2009 - 50% of households receive DTV
- 31 Dec 2010 - 80% of households receive DTV
- 1 Nov 2011 - ~100% digital coverage and switch-off of all remaining analogue transmitters
During the period 2008-2011, Sentech will transmit both analogue and digital signals in what is known as a dual-illumination period
Digital television transition
The digital television transition is the process in which analog television broadcasting is converted to and replaced by digital television. This primarily involves both TV stations and over-the-air viewers; however it also involves content providers like TV networks, and cable television...
. Households not already using digital televisions will need to purchase a set-top box
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
(STB) in order to continue receiving a television signal. The government plans to subsidise poorer households by 70% of the purchase price of the STB. The STBs will be manufactured locally by a number of different South African companies, the largest of which is Altech, a major local electronics company that also manufactures the STBs for Multichoice.
The government's stated goal is to have digital television as well as mobile television
DVB-H
DVB-H is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2004. The DVB-H specification can be downloaded from the official DVB-H website...
up and running in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup
2010 FIFA World Cup
The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national association football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010...
tournament to be hosted by South Africa.
Satellite television
South African-based MultichoiceMultiChoice
MultiChoice is a South African company which operates the DStv satellite television service, the main satellite TV service in Sub-Saharan Africa. It was formed out of the subscriber-management branch of the M-Net terrestrial pay TV company, and broadcasts the full range of M-Net channels on the...
's DStv
DStv
DStv is MultiChoice's multi-channel digital satellite TV service in Africa, launched in 1995. It operates from two satellites over Africa, broadcasting on Ku band via Eutelsat W7 and Intelsat 7 , which only requires a small satellite dish...
is the main digital satellite television provider in sub-Saharan Africa, broadcasting principally in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, but also in Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
.
In May 2010 On Digital Media launched the TopTV
TopTV
TopTV is a South African satellite TV service that began broadcasting on 1 May 2010. TopTV is owned by On Digital Media, who were granted a pay-TV license by ICASA in September 2007. On Digital Media is 20% owned by TV satellite operator, SES Astra...
satellite television service. It offers a number of South African and international television channels and broadcasts principally in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, but also in Hindi, Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
and Afrikaans
Afrikaans
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter language of Dutch, originating in its 17th century dialects, collectively referred to as Cape Dutch .Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch; see , , , , , .Afrikaans was historically called Cape...
.
Dubai-based Strong Technologies offers MyTVAfrica which offers programming to sub-Saharan Africa, although it is not targeted specifically to the South African market. Great Media Limited offers the Free2view
Free2view
Free2view is the name of a Free-to-air Satellite Tv broadcaster in Africa.-First Stint:They made headline in 2007 after Icasa announced awardees of Pay TV licenses. They broadcasted without one and the two organizations continuously clashed...
service, which has no recurring subscription fees.
Other Technologies
Satellite television has been far more successful in Africa than cable, because maintaining a cable network is expensive due to the need to cover larger and more sparsely populated areas. . There are some terrestrial pay-TV and MMDS services. .See also
- List of South African television series
- List of television stations in South Africa