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e.tv's group CEO Marcel Golding warned/implored parliament that ''new tampering with the spectrum allocation is going to ghetto-ize free TV for masses of people in this country.''
Marcel Golding appeared before parliament's portfolio committee on communications and the hearings into digital TV migration in which South Africa is lagging behind. South Africa is risking falling further behind after the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) indicated that it wants to amend the digital migration policy for the country again, with possible spectrum allocation changes.
''Working people also have ambitions to have better TV's with higher definition. It is certainly going to be the standard as time unfolds. Why cut our spectrum? There's should be sufficient spectrum available after the digital dividend is assessed, of whether spectrum should be kept for new entrants if and when a market study has been done that indicates that it's viable for those businesses to be established,'' Marcel Golding said.
''We can't make those decisions today, we need more experience to do that. We appeal to Icasa to leave the regulations for now so that we can all proceed. We're not saying there shouldn't be new TV entrants. We're saying all this is leading to a delay.''
''And while we're moving into a delay, masses of people in this country are being denied multichannel television because there are individual groups who want TV stations. From e.tv's side we want to be cosntructive. We want to make digital terrestrial television (DTT) work for the country. A lot of these things are not what we wanted but we're doing it and supporting it because we think that's what government wants.''
