The SABC's CEO Lulama Mokhobo says she is disappointed that the SABC's new 24-hour TV news channel, SABC News (DStv 404), isn't available to all all South African TV households who have to pay an SABC TV license, and is begging viewers to "please bear with us" until the TV news channel is made available freely once the long delayed digital terrestrial television (DTT) switch over happens.
SABC News, a public TV channel from the public broadcaster started broadcasting on Thursday evening on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform as part of that pay-TV service.
Lulama Mokhobo, interviewed on the SABC News channel, called the SABC News channel "one of my big things to tick off". She called the establishment of the SABC's second attempt at a 24-hour news channel "one frought with problems, mainly financial issues."
SABC News is the South Africa public broadcaster's second attempt at a 24-hour TV news channel after SABC News International was started in July 2007 and closed down three years later at the end of March 2010 after it became a money-guzzling expense which had burnt through hundreds of millions of rands.
"When MultiChoice came forward and said that as a private company they feel an obligation to support the SABC, we had a negotiating team led by Hlaudi Motsoeneng [the SABC's famously matricless acting chief operating officer (COO)] who boxed it all together," said Lulama Mokhobo.
Lulama Mokhobo said she wants SABC News to "tell the full South African story". "People need to know the story behind the story. We've never been able to do it. And finally we can do it now. And the tendency has been to show only the negative news. It's time South Africans become proud of their country - not the doom and gloom and corruption."
"My huge disappointment," said Lulama Mokhobo is "that we wanted to start with every citizen having access [to the news channel]. Unfortunately there were no more free frequencies available which meant we need to wait for DTT to emerge."
"We realized that while we're waiting for DTT, the urgency was becoming bigger and bigger for us to do the right things. So we decided that we will go onto the MultiChoice platform. Hopefully it will be for a very short period. The second we switch oover to DTT, SABC News will be on DTT," said Lulama Mokhobo.
"So I want to ask the South Africans who have no access to DStv to bear with us, you are going to get access. And by that time hopefully we will have honed our skills so well, that by that time the broadcasts will be really, really amazing," said Lulama Mokhobo.
