by Thinus Ferreira
The South African government is now ready to leave millions of analogue TV viewers behind in its switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT) with poor TV households who literally won't be able to watch television further as transmitters are switched off nationwide while they haven't changed to digital set-top boxes.
Meanwhile the country's department of communications once again amended and pushed out its deadline for provinces to fully switch from analogue to DTT that it agreed on and published in March, just 6 months ago.
It is estimated that there are close to 4 million South African TV households who are still on the analogue television platform.
At the start of South Africa's long-delayed digital migration process, the South African government promised that analogue TV signals in the country won't be switched off before all viewers have not switched to DTT and have successfully migrated.
That is no longer the case, with the government that is now switching off analogue transmitters whether all analogue TV households in a specific provincial area have switched or not.
The department of communications and digital technologies is still helping poor TV households with an oncome of less than R3500 per month to get a free DTT set-top box (STB) but will no longer wait for them to first have the box before switching off analogue transmission towers in provinces.
On Tuesday, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, the country's latest minister of communications and digital technologies, in a government briefing said that Tebogo Leshope, Sentech chief operating officer (COO) has now been appointed as South Africa's broadcasting digital migration project manager.
Multiple such DTT managers have come and gone over the past decade as South Africa missed the international deadlines for DTT completion, as well as the government and the department's own national deadlines with constantly moving goalposts.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni on Tuesday revealed that the department had once again shifted out the deadlines for DTT completion and analogue switch-off in various provinces it announced in March this year.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that analogue transmitters in the Free State will be completely switched off by the end of October or by the first week of November by the latest, followed by complete switch-off of the 11 remaining analogue sites in the Northern Cape province by mid- or late-November.
The remaining 15 analogue sites in the North-West province will be switched off by mid- or late-November as well, while all the remaining analogue sites in the Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces will be switched off in the last week of December 2021 or the first week of January 2022 according to the latest adjusted list.
All remaining analogue sites in the Eastern Cape,Western Cape, Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces will be switched off by the end of January 2022.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, in the latest DTT completion promise, said that South Africa's digital TV migration process will be completed by the end of March 2022.
Poor TV households getting their television from analogue TV signals have until the end of October to still register at the struggling South African Post Office to receive a free STB. Households who register from November will only be getting a decoder between 3 to 6 months after the analogue switch-off date.
Only 1.18 million of the qualifying 3.75 million poor TV households in South Africa have registered for a STB. Out of this 1.18 million, the South African government only managed to "migrate" 556 954 to a set-top box.
Meanwhile households who have received DTT decoders have complained that theirs have broken, no longer work, or that badly manufactured boxes are faulty or never worked properly. Meanwhile 840 000 STB are laying in Post Office warehouses collecting dust, still to be handed out and installed.
On Tuesday Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that 10.5 million TV households in South Africa have "self-migrated" from analogue to digital terrestrial television through private and commercial satellite pay-TV and free-to-air satellite TV.
Of this, 7.8 million TV households have been through MultiChoice's DStv, 2.3 million through eMedia Holdings' Openview, and 450 000 through China's StarTimes operating as StarSat in South Africa.
Sentech has already switched off 84 analogue sites across various provinces in South Africa. MultiChoice has switched off all of its analogue transmitters. The South African public broadcaster has switched off 105 of its 288 transmitters. Of the 95 analogue sites used by e.tv, only 4 have been switched off so far.
Not a single South African province has yet switched off all of its analogue signal transmitters.
Once again the department of communications trying to create a Digital Migration Call Centre that it should have done long ago and promised many times.
On Tuesday Khumbudzo Ntshavheni promised yet again that a Digital Migration Call Centre has been created and that the details of it will be made available later in October 2021.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that an app is being created so that poor people can register for a free set-top box and that it is under development.
Since Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that poor TV households only have until the end of October to register, and with the app still in development, it's unclear how households are supposed to use an app that doesn't exist in October to register before the end of October for a decoder.
Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said the department now wants to go to cabinet with a policy proposal for codes and standards for digital TV sets as have been done in other countries to prevent the possible dumping of imported analogue TV sets in South Africa. It's unclear why the South African government and the department haven't done this years ago.
