The minister of communications, Dina Pule, just told parliament that South Africa's process of migration to digital terrestrial television (DTT) is "on track".
South Africa's TV industry has to switch from analogue broadcasting to digital broadcasting - a billion rand exercise weighing heavily on all broadcasters and which is mired in bureaucratic red tape, inadequate government direction and leadership and a monstrous mess of stakeholders and stakeholder issues convoluting the process.
South Africa is actually very far behind its often postponed schedule for the commercial implementation of DTT; has failed and keeps postponing the deadlines, and has fallen behind several African nations in the switch-over although South Africa was first to start the process on the continent.
Dina Pule just told parliament that the department of communications "is educating the South Africa public to understand that digital broadcasting means that they need to take action". [That is probably the government advert in select newspapers in which the minister creates further confusion by telling people that they're going to get high definition (HD) television. - Ed]
"Digital terrestrial television will be done in a phased manner and will be rolled out in all the provinces," she said. "The migration to digital television will increase the demand for content, due to the increase in the number of TV channels available," said Dina Pule.
