eMedia, the broadcaster that owns e.tv and Openview, has told communications regulator Icasa that digital terrestrial television (DTT) in South Africa has failed and has no future.
Speaking at the public hearings forming part of Icasa’s inquiry into the review of the digital migration regulations of 2012 held in Pretoria on Friday, eMedia CEO Khalik Sherrif told a panel of Icasa councillors that although DTT has been problematic in many parts of the world, much of the “woes” in South Africa have been self-inflicted.
“The actual state of DTT in this country leaves much to be desired – instead of taking broadcasting to a new level. Maybe 10 years ago we could have done something to ensure that DTT could survive, [but] there has been a laziness to the process — and we are now at a point where DTT is archaic, expensive and will not work because television has evolved,” said Sherrif.
In its written submission to the inquiry, eMedia said reasons for the delay in the migration to digital broadcasts are “numerous”, citing problems associated the with government subsidised set-top-box roll-out, low levels of awareness among many households and the continued non-availability of set-top boxes in retail stores.
Sherrif said that while South Africa was embroiled in these self-inflicted delays, technology continued to evolve. He likened South Africa’s broadcasting evolution to that of the telephone, saying most South Africans leapfrogged landlines in favour of mobile devices.
“It may be that we can skip this DTT medium and move on to the latest technology. The world has moved on to HD, 4K, 8K and the like, and we want to hold onto DTT, which, in the main, broadcasts in standard definition,” he said.
‘Premature’
Sherrif also slammed the communications ministry’s deadline of 31 December 2024 for analogue switch-off, calling it “premature”. eMedia believes it is unlikely that the millions of households that still do not have access to digital broadcasts – mainly because they don’t have the necessary hardware – will be connected in the six months between now and the year-end deadline.
eMedia predicts that some 4.5 million households will still be reliant on analogue television to receive free-to-air channels (which also includes the SABC channels) after the analogue switch-off, mostly due to them not being able to afford the set-top boxes that will allow them to access digital broadcasts. Losing this sizeable customer base would be harmful to the livelihoods of employees at both eMedia and the SABC, said Sherrif.
“It is detrimental to free-to-air businesses because the people who watch free-to-air television are not the upper echelon of the country that watch on their iPads, etc. These people are reliant on analogue broadcasts,” he said Sherrif.
“The future of DTT in South Africa appears to be precarious at best, or doomed to failure. This means that analogue television is here to stay alongside DTT for the foreseeable future. The continued existence of analogue terrestrial television needs to be taken into account in both the policy and regulatory environment,” eMedia said in its submission to Icasa. – © 2024 NewsCentral Media