Court halts South African television's 31 March 2025 analogue TV switch-off

by Thinus Ferreira

The Pretoria High Court on Thursday stopped the South African government from switching off South Africa's analogue TV signals at the end of this month, granting a reprieve to broadcasters like the SABC, e.tv as well as millions of TV households still depending on analogue TV.

South Africa's department of communications and digital technologies and its minister, Solly Malatsi, as well as parastatal signal distributor, Sentech, were interdicted from shutting down the remaining analogue signals in the four remaining and largest provinces at the end of March.

eMedia's e.tv and civil society pressure groups like SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) once again had to take the government to court to prevent a switch-off, after its ongoing failure to ensure that millions of TV households have been switched over and have access to public television through digital terrestrial television (DTT).

The government planned to flip the kill switch on analogue TV at the end of December 2024, and then pushed the date out to the end of March 2025 - the umpteenth extension in a derailed process that has taken over 15 years.

The South African government has not budgeted for "dual illumination" - the process of transmitting both analogue and the same digital signals in 2025, a cost that has skyrocketed and already cost the country billions of rand over the past decade.

According to Judge Selby Baqwa's judgment, "The operation of the final analogue switch-off date of 31 March 2025, as announced by the minister of communications and digital technologies on 5 December 2024, is suspended".

"The minister of communications and digital technologies is interdicted from taking any steps to implement the switch-off of analogue signals and ending dual illumination."

Baqqa also found that Malatsi failed to properly consult with the industry and stakeholders before making his analogue switch-off date decision, also handed the department a cost order for the court case, and noted that the 31 March switch-off date "is irrational".

The department of communications and digital technologies still have to provide and install a set-top box (STB) to thousands of poor TV households but many more households are not even on the outdated list. 

Furthermore, households have more than one viewer, meaning that millions of viewers are still waiting to be switched to DTT.

Then there is also the so-called "missing middle": TV households who earn more than R3500 monthly and who don't qualify for a STB. They have to buy a new TV set or a STB which they either can't afford or can't even find in retail since it's not stocked.

e.tv to court again to demand further extension in South Africa's digital TV switch-over with 'devastating impact' warning for country's TV ratings

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's umbrella TV broadcasters, together with organisations supporting public broadcasting, are back in court demanding the government push out the analogue TV signal switch-off deadline date looming at the end of March, warning about the "devastating impact" and the loss of a third of the country's total public TV audience overnight.

The SABC, e.tv and community TV stations collectively face the existential danger of the overnight loss of millions of viewers on 1 April when their ratings will plunge and with that their precious ad income.

The SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) - organisations that lobby for the protection of public broadcasting - have now come on board and filed an affidavit in court supporting eMedia's e.tv that says it has once again been forced to go to court over the imminent switch-off date.

They say South African television risks losing almost a third of the entire remaining public access TV viewing audience overnight if analogue signals are cut in two months' time.

South Africa's last deadline date for the switch-off of analogue TV signals in the country's long-delayed digital migration process to digital terrestrial television (DTT) was 31 December 2024.

Last month, in another last-minute scramble, Solly Malatsi, minister of communications and digital technologies, hastily announced that the switch-off date would once again be pushed out by another three months to the end of March 2025.

But even these three months are not enough of a reprieve for the SABC, e.tv and community TV stations like Cape Town TV (CTV).

No money was budgeted for the DTT process beyond the end of last year and it is unclear where the department, parastatal signal distributor Sentech and others, will find the money for the current three-month extension that will cost millions more.

It costs the government and Sentech between R130 million to R160 million per year to transmit the same TV signal - for instance SABC1 or SABC3 - as both an analogue and a DTT signal, a process known as dual illumination.

Solly Malatsi is South Africa's 12th minister of communications and digital technologies overseeing the morass of the country's failed DTT migration process that has cost the country already over R12 billion over the past 10 years.

Last year the SABC told the department of communications and digital technologies that the public broadcaster would like the deadline to be extended by another year to the end of 2025. 

eMedia running the country's only commercial TV broadcaster e.tv didn't specify a specific extension date and said it isn't against the DTT process but that more time and a reasonable switch-off extension is required.

Now e.tv is once again taking the government to court over the disastrous DTT process and the latest deadline. 

The broadcaster already took the department to court previously and won in the Constitutional Court in 2022 over the DTT switch-off deadline.

Three years ago the court declared the then minister of communications' deadline of 30 June 2022 unconstitutional and recognised the massively adverse impact the switch-off then would have had on the public and the broadcasters.

Massive TV audience loss risk

On Friday SOS and MMA joined e.tv's latest court fight and lodged an affidavit at the High Court of South Africa in Pretoria, saying that although there's been yet another three-month DTT switch-off extension, that it is still not enough time to avert a South African public broadcasting disaster.

According to the groups' affidavit, the premature analogue signals switch-off on 31 March on the public, public broadcasting the SABC, community TV channels and e.tv would have a "devastating impact".

The groups are also upset about MMA and SOS "exclusion from regular consultations with broadcasters".

SOS and MMA note that if the government and Sentech were to flip the switches across the remaining provinces and kill analogue TV signals on 31 March 2025, "Poor and marginalised communities will be cut off from free-to-air television thus denying their right to access to information".

What will follow will be an immediate "Loss of advertising and sponsorship revenue for the SABC" with the groups warning that "The free-to-air audience will diminish from 55.1% of television household population to 26.6% of television household population". 

That will be 28.5% of the free-to-air audience - almost a third of South Africa's remaining public  TV audience that contribute to South Africa's television ratings - which will be gone overnight. 

"We are hoping that the High Court rules in the public interest as the Constitutional Court did in 2022," the groups say.

"We are also hopeful that the government will reconsider and postpone the analogue switch-off date of 31 March 2025 to ensure a proper roll-out of the set-top boxes (STBs) so that no South African

is left without access to television."

Battle to just get boxes

There are millions more South African TV households who either haven't had their free set-box box (STB) installed yet by the government as well as the "missing middle" who earn more than R3 500 and must buy one - although none exist in retail - and must still make the switch.

A shocking 467 000 poor households who have registered for the government-subsidised set-top boxes have not yet had these installed, with STBs gathering dust in locked South African Post Offices and Sentech warehouses.

This is also just the number of households the government is aware of and appears on its outdated database list. 

The department of communications and digital technologies has no idea how many people and TV households exist who are still making use of analogue TV and must pay to buy some type of bridging solution like MultiChoice's DStv, eMedia's Openview, a new DTT-enabled flatscreen TV set or some type of other STB.

This is also why the SABC wants to start its own satellite TV service, similar to Openview, to offer a type of pay-once solution to the "missing middle" to switch from analogue viewing to getting the SABC TV channels and radio stations through a decoder. 

The SABC says there are millions of these viewers in South Africa - TV households still on analogue who must pay for a STB but don't see the urgency or understand the need.

While e.tv refused to go along, kept its analogue signals on and was largely spared the devastating consequences of audience loss, the SABC that initially kept quiet and went along as the government turned its signals off in province after province over the past three years, saw its audience reach and ratings steadily diminish – something that the public has since called "devastating" and a "disaster".

Around 174 analogue transmitters across South Africa's most populated provinces - Gauteng, Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape - are still on.

Collectively these four provinces' TV households represent more than half of South Africa's total population.

In the vast majority of cases, one "TV household" on the country's TV ratings system (TAMS) has multiple viewers. 

Depriving these TV households of their TV access will immediately wipe them - and the programmes they watch - from being counted towards the overnight audience ratings of shows ranging from Uzalo on SABC1, Muvhango on SABC2 and Scandal! on e.tv.

Besides viewers cut off from TV news, current affairs and other educational programming, lower ratings will force broadcasters like the SABC and e.tv to immediately lower ad fees on their rate cards, which will lead to lower ad income, and lower overall revenue.

The same goes for community TV channels like CTV and others already fighting an uphill battle with exorbitant signal transmission fees.

The struggling SABC is already technically insolvent and battling an ongoing trend of multi-year traditional TV ratings erosion and can ill afford a massive audience plunge.

The SABC'S Sentech blackout over non-payment of R1.3 billion pushed out for another 2 months

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's embattled public broadcaster won't have its signals cut over non-payment for the next two months.

The cash-strapped and technically insolvent SABC is battling two major existential threats.

Firstly the SABC is facing signal loss and having the signals from its TV and radio channels axed by parastatal signal distributor Sentech which the SABC simply stopped paying and owes over R1.3 billion. Sentech has threatened that it will cut the broadcaster's signals.

Secondly, the SABC that has experienced a massive TV ratings loss due to it already, faces the dire threat of having millions of its viewers completely wiped away when the South African government plans to switch off the last of South Africa's analogue signal towers on 31 December before viewers have been properly help to migrate to digital terrestrial television (DTT) options.

Now Solly Malatsi, South Africa's latest minister of communications and digital technologies, says he has intervened to prevent Sentech from axing the SABC's signals for at least another two months.

That gives the SABC some further breathing space on the one problem, although Malatsi remains silent on the SABC's looming analogue switch-off disaster which is as pressing a problem.

Malatsi in a statement says he intervened and set up a meeting between the SABC and Sentech to find a solution to the SABC's inability and unwillingness to pay Sentech and the risk that South Africans would be cut off due to the SABC's non-payment.

Malatsi says the latest agreement is that Sentech "will not switch off the public broadcaster for at least the next two months while we are exploring options to have a long-term sustainability model for the SABC".

"These options include National Treasury's decision on the application by the SABC to reclassify its grant which would allow for part of its allocation to be used to pay Sentech for signal distribution services."

Malatsi says "While the SABC has been making steady progress towards improving its financial standing, the fact is that it has not been able to fully pay Sentech for services rendered. At the same time, Sentech is at risk of running out of cash due to the non-payment, a risk that may even affect other broadcasters".

"I am determined to prioritise the development and finalisation of the financial model for the SABC to ensure that it becomes sustainable, able to pay its creditors and to deliver on its core function of providing accessible, diverse, and impartial news, entertainment, and educational content to the public."

A million decoders: The South African public broadcaster wants to start a SABC satellite TV service.

Thinus Ferreira

The South African public broadcaster which has no money to pay for the project itself, is looking for a company to manufacture a million decoders and start a SABC satellite TV service for it for free.

The technically insolvent SABC - struggling with falling TV ratings and declining viewership through audience erosion due to rival streaming and satellite TV - now wants to start its own SABC satellite TV service, or direct-to-home (DTH) service.

The SABC is looking for a company to bear 100% of the cost to set up its SABC satellite TV service, manufacture and distribute set-top boxes (STB), and to create and run a call centre for five years.

As part of the extremely ambitious requirements, the SABC wants 100 000 decoders of what is supposed to be a million eventually, pushed to market by the end of the year when the last of its analogue TV signals are switched off.

The SABC is envious of eMedia's Openview satellite TV service which has surpassed 3.42 million activated decoders by the end of March this year since e.tv launched Openview a decade ago in October 2013.

Openview helped to buffer e.tv against TV ratings erosion, gave e.tv another entry point into homes, allowed eMedia to launch its own multi-TV-channel offering and start a subscription bouquet as an additional revenue stream. 

The SABC wants its own 4K-resolution enabled STBs to carry its own existing collection of SABC TV channels, as well as its 19 SABC radio channels.

From SABC DTT to satellite TV

According to the public broadcaster, South Africa's severely botched, almost two decades-delayed process of switching from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television (DTT) has severely damaged its once-entrenched market position.

SABC audience sizes keep diminishing which negatively impacts its advertising income as more and more SABC viewers are cut off and switch to other broadcasters when they can no longer get SABC signals.

eMedia has already said that South Africa's TV switchover from analogue to DTT technology is outdated, damaging the country's TV and broadcasting industry, and consumers have leapfrogged past it.

The SABC dabbled in its first satellite TV service almost thirty years ago when it launched its own AstraSat in 1996 a year after MultiChoice started DStv in 1995.

The SABC blew millions of rand on starting AstraSat which massively damaged the broadcaster financially when AstraSat launched with a bouquet of the SABC's TV channels and a few others like M-Net which packaged a special SuperSport "lite" channel for AstraSat that the SABC paid for similar to the sport sublicensing deals it does with SuperSport now.

Just a year and a half later in February 1998 the SABC was forced to cut its enormous losses and abruptly shuttered AstraSat to rather concentrate on its existing analogue broadcast network with distribution done by Sentech.

In a tender document, the SABC says it needs its own satellite TV service to combat the "devastating effect of analogue switch-off on viewers on 31 December" and that the creation of its own satellite service will enable the broadcaster to take control of its future broadcast destiny and to "position the SABC as a content aggregator, to add additional TV channels to the existing bouquet and to consolidate audiences through a single platform".

The SABC says DTT is severely limiting and doesn't allow it to grow its number of TV channels, nothing that its existing offering of six SABC TV channels are an extremely weak value offering since rivals easily offer 10 or more channels.

The SABC notes that the delays in rolling out DTT have eroded SABC viewership while competitors grew their ratings at the cost of the public broadcaster. 

The SABC says that it is in danger of losing another 1.7 million viewers by 31 December when Sentech cuts the last of its analogue transmissions countrywide.

Sentech already switched off 198 analogue signals from transmission towers across several provinces, cutting off millions of viewers who can no longer get SABC reception through the TV sets they used to receive it.

SABC satellite decoders

Now the SABC wants a satellite TV service again with a partner that will have to shoulder 100% of the operating costs - including establishing and running a call centre and the manufacture and distribution of decoders.

According to a new SABC tender for which applications closed on Monday at noon, the SABC prefers that whichever company takes on the multimillion-rand project, uses the IS20 satellite transponder which MultiChoice, as well as eMedia and Sentech, have already been using for their DStv and Openview satellite TV services.

By using the IS20-transponder, households with an existing satellite dish installation to watch DStv or Openview through those decoders, will be able to simply plug-and-play the SABC's service by connecting the SABC decoder to the existing satellite dish cable.

According to the SABC, the already existing network of installers and agents of DStv, Openview and Startimes SA's StarSat would then also be able to do installations of the SABC's STBs.

The successful bidder will have to carry the cost of satellite transponder uplinking and the full capital expenditure of a "turnkey-solution" for the SABC which will run into millions, "at no cost for the SABC".

Besides the first 100 000 decoders to be manufactured, the SABC eventually wants a million decoders in the market for its satellite TV project, with a 50/50-share between a basic type of decoder and a more luxury, hybrid type STB.

The basic SABC decoder will just work with a normal satellite TV dish mounted outside, while the more expensive hybrid STB - similar to eMedia's latest Openview OV512 decoder - must offer built-in Wi-Fi 802.11 functionality and be able to connect to the internet.

This more expensive SABC decoder will have to offer the broadcaster's SABC+ streaming service and allow viewers to record, download and store content and programmes, similar to MultiChoice's DStv Explora decoders.

By the end of September, the SABC wants to see a manufactured prototype decoder which the successful bidder must "demo" to the broadcaster in a presentation, before mass production starts - preferably somewhere in South Africa according to the SANS-1719 requirements.

The SABC says it projects to have a million users of its own SABC satellite TV service after half a decade.

It's unclear how the SABC expects the successful bidder to make money from the project or recoup its massive investment, although the SABC says it expects the partner to make a "profit-sharing" proposal.

In June the SABC fired its COO and head of video entertainment, while its ad boss resigned, after they were found guilty of deliberately hiding an ad revenue profit-sharing agreement with Discover Digital which got a contract to run the broadcaster's SABC+ video streaming service.

SABC: Looking for a turnkey solution

The SABC confirmed to me that the broadcaster wants its own satellite TV service, done for the SABC as a complete turnkey solution.

"The SABC can confirm that the organisation is in pursuit of the development and implementation of a free-to-air (FTA) direct-to-home (DTH) solution as an additional platform strategy," Mmoni Seapolelo, SABC spokesperson said in response to questions.

"It must be noted that this is the implementation of the SABC's long-standing digital transformation strategy which includes building SABC-owned platforms and being present in multi-platforms with capabilities for multi-channels, as well as futureproofing the organisation."

She says "Like any other strategy journey, there are priorities as well as milestones and as such, the SABC has recently successfully implemented the OTT platform, SABC+. The next step is the implementation of the DTH platform."

"In terms of DTT, the SABC is already on the DTT platform. Therefore, the introduction of a DTH solution is another strategy in line with the SABC's mandate to provide universal access."

"The SABC is looking for a partner to collaborate with, in providing this solution. The SABC will provide content and the partner will provide other elements as covered in the turnkey solution".

An industry expert told me that a SABC satellite TV service "is a good idea which should have happened years ago since the SABC could have had a satellite TV service of its own now, with the market penetration and audience that Openview and e.tv currently have".

"It's a big risk however for whoever takes on this massive project - and for free. Perhaps the SABC should ask Elon Musk to do it - he has the satellites and he's got billions he can lose."

'Just a mess': South Africa's public broadcaster lost 40% of its audience in 5 provinces as former SABC CEO slams government's analogue switch-off 'not done properly'.

by Thinus Ferreira

The struggling South African public broadcaster which will post yet another loss for its 2022/2023 financial year of over R1 billion abruptly lost 40% of its viewers across 5 provinces last year when the government suddenly switched off analogue transmitters - a process that the former SABC CEO Madoda Mxakwe says was "not done properly" and a process he slams as "just a mess".

The beleaguered SABC has seen ratings continue to slip for its SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 TV channels - due to old content, repeats, Eskom's ongoing blackouts due to the country's electricity-generating capacity crisis, as well as the switch-off of Sentech's analogue signal transmitters.

South Africa's long-delayed process to switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) continues to be dragged out due to incompetence, corruption and mismanagement by the South African government and its department of communications and digital technologies, as well as numerous court cases from industry players over the years.

In an interview with the City Press newspaper, the former SABC CEO Madoda Mxakwe, whose 5-year contract expired at the end of June, slammed the analogue switch-off which suddenly saw 5 provinces lose their SABC analogue signals, as "just a mess".

"It wasn't done properly. It was just a mess," he said.

While the former SABC board in 2022 - when the SABC still had one before a half-year gap that stretched well into 2023 - told the former minister of communications Khumbudzo Ntshaveni that a haphazard analogue switch-off will severely damage the public broadcaster and that it should be done responsibly, the opposite suddenly happened.

The department and Sentech rapidly switched off the SABC's analogue signals in 5 provinces: Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, the Free State and the Northern Cape.

With the switch-off 40% of the SABC's viewership in those provinces disappeared overnight. Now the government plans to switch off the SABC's analogue signals in Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape - South Africa's largest remaining provinces - by the end of December 2024.

"According to figures from the Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA), after the switch-off in those 5 provinces, 40% of our audiences were completely wiped off last year, which did affect our revenue," Madoda Mxakwe said. 

While 10.5 million people watched Uzalo on SABC1 in January 2022, that rating fell to 4.8 million after the analogue switch-off of Sentech transmitters.

"If a client had been paying us R200 million a year for advertising space, they began asking why they should pay the same amount when the viewership had been reduced from 10.5 million to 4.8 million," Madoda Mzakwe said.

SABC set to launch a second SABC News TV channel in South Africa's indigenous languages.

by Thinus Ferreira

The South African public broadcaster will soon launch a second SABC News TV channel, similar to the existing English-language one on DStv funded and paid for by MultiChoice, but only available on its own SABC+ streaming service and as a digital terrestrial TV service - with news and current affairs programming in vernacular languages other than English.

After the SABC relaunched its SABC News channel in August 2013 on DStv, it carried the Zulu, Afrikaans, Siswati, Tsonga, Xhosa, isiNdelebe, Sotho and Venda TV news bulletins done for SABC1 and SABC2 throughout the day on the SABC News channel.

Two years later MultiChoice two years later decided to expand the SABC News channel beyond South Africa into the rest of the African continent and the SABC altered the programming on the channel to an English-only format.

The result was that the SABC dropped TV news bulletins in all other languages besides English from SABC News from April 2015. The channel has been English-only for the past seven years with SABC TV news bulletins in South Africa's other official languages only available on SABC1 and SABC2 as once-off broadcasts and made available on YouTube.

Now the SABC is planning on bringing back and expanding these other TV news bulletins in languages other than English on a SABC News spinoff TV channel which will be made available on its SABC+ streaming service, as well as a digital terrestrial television (DTT) channel where it will sit alongside the existing SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and SABC Sport channels.

The as-yet-unnamed SABC News channel which will run 24 hours per day, similar to the existing SABC News channel and which will be launched soon, will carry TV news bulletins and current affairs programming in indigenous languages, as well as do parliamentary coverage in non-English languages from Cape Town.

Besides complementing the existing SABC News channel, this second SABC News channel will compete with eMedia Investment's eNCA (DStv 403) and Thabile Ngwato and Thokozani Nkosi's Newzroom Afrika (DStv 405) TV news channels.

In November 2022 Newzroom Afrika started hiring field reporters, bulletin editors and executive producers to dramatically expand its vernacular news offering, with plans to start offering TV news bulletins on the channel in Nguni languages like isiZulu and isiXhosa in 2023 - something which eMedia tried before and later scaled back again.

The SABC didn't respond to specific questions in a media query about the SABC News offshoot channel but did confirm to me that the channel will be launching officially soon.

"The channel will be broadcast on DTT and SABC+," Gugu Ntuli, SABC spokesperson said.

"In response to the millions of audiences yearning for longer and more quality bulletins and current affairs in African languages, the SABC will soon be launching its 24-hour African news channel to cater to the needs of these loyal viewers."

She said that the channel "will also include more parliamentary content including content from its committees. More details regarding the name and exciting offerings will be revealed soon".

It's not yet clear what resources the SABC is allocating to this new channel, whether more staff are being hired and to what degree the new channel it will be run with the existing SABC News newsroom capacity, infrastructure and budget.

The SABC was asked but it is also still unclear if the new channel will be carrying any advertising from its launch, what the number of live programming hours will be, and how the rebroadcast cycle is being structured with news channels using an overnight repeat approach and usually repeating news content during two 8-hour blocks over a 24-hour period.

244 000 poor South African TV households still waiting on their digital terrestrial TV installation and government set-top box.

by Thinus Ferreira

Close to a quarter million poor South African TV households are still waiting for their subsidised digital terrestrial television (DTT) decoders to be installed South Africa's minister of communications and digital technologies, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, revealed at a media briefing on Thursday afternoon.

Eleven years behind schedule, South Africa's government is still trying to complete the country's long-overdue switch from analogue to digital terrestrial TV, a process known as digital migration.

While the South African government and the parastatal TV signal distributor Sentech have started to switch off analogue transmission signal towers in several provinces - something that has damaged the TV ratings of the SABC over the past year - eMedia's e.tv has refused to do so, taking the communications department to the Constitutional Court and demanding that the process be delayed until more free-to-air TV households have access to DTT instead of simply being cut off from public television in South Africa.

The outcome of the court case in which e.tv has been victorious over the department, has seen the analogue switch-off deadline of 30 June 2022 pushed out further to an undetermined date.

Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that the new final date for households to register to receive a free DTT STB is now 30 September 2022, and hasn't declared a new final switch-off date.

On Thursday afternoon Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, at a DTT press briefing, said that 244 000 DTT installations still need to be done for indigent TV households earning less than R3 500 per month and who qualify for a free DTT set-top box (STB) decoder.

The 244 000 include TV households in the provinces of KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape who had their installations delayed due to adverse weather and flooding halting the process.

Between April and July this year there have been an average of 15 288 registrations from TV households applying for the government-subsidised STB, with the number of registrations declining.

"The total number of new registered households between April and July 2022 now stands at 61 155 and this translates to an average of 15 288 registrations per month - therefore, representing a decline in set-top-box applications and registrations," she said.

"The digital migration process is a national priority, and it must be completed without any further delay for the benefit of the country," Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said.

The SABC's shocking TV ratings slide in numbers: 'The world of broadcast TV is rapidly changing'.

by Thinus Ferreira

Like a once deep lake slowly getting drained while the entire ecosystem which depended on it becomes unstable, shrinks and disappears, the South African public broadcaster's constantly eroding TV ratings and ongoing audience loss is a massive cause for concern for the entire local television and advertising industry and a growing existential crisis for the troubled SABC which seems unable to stop the viewership bleed.

An analysis of SABC TV ratings over the past year shows how the South African public broadcaster continues to lose millions of viewers, with its SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 TV channels experiencing ongoing and hugely troubling linear TV ratings losses.

The disappearing SABC TV audiences have a massive negative impact on the broadcaster's income, with the SABC forced to charge less and less in advertising rates for TV commercials when fewer eyeballs are watching.

While the troubled SABC3 has been in a ratings black hole for more than the past decade, the disturbing South African TV ratings picture reveals that even SABC2 now looks like the SABC3 of five years ago. 

Back in September 2017, SABC3 still managed 1.87 million viewers for its most-watched content for the month, and 430 621 viewers for its 20th highest-rated show. 

Cue SABC2's ratings in June 2022 with 1.88 million viewers at most and 399 844 for its 20th highest-rated show and it's evident how SABC2's ratings picture is now like SABC3 when that sister channel was already in big trouble.

Meanwhile, SABC3 itself looks to be virtually on life-support now as a TV channel, with just over 700 000 viewers nationally at most in June.

TVwithThinus looked at the ratings of the past year - from June 2021 to June 2022 - for the SABC's three big terrestrial TV channels. For the exercise, the TV rating of the highest-rated programming on each channel, as well as the 20th highest-rated show on each channel were taken over the past 12 months.

Take a look at the steady and shocking decline of the SABC's TV viewership and ratings over just the past year.

SABC1 top-rated show

June 2021:            8 024 208

July 2021:             7 776 154 

August 2021:        7 648 487

September 2021: 6 879 581

October 2021:      7 099 635

November 2021: 6 990 052

December 2021: 6 855 580

January 2022:    6 995 444 

February 2022:  6 677 494

March 2022:      7 020 908

April 2022:          6 471 686

May 2022:           5 783 736

June 2022:           6 103 846

SABC1 20th rated show:

June 2021:            2 118 704

July 2021:             2 357 043

August 2021:        2 262 219

September 2021:  1 937 322

October 2021:      1 745 856

November 2021:  1 558 864

December 2021:   1 465 153

January 2022:       1 419 480

February 2022:     1 417 425

March 2022:         1 560 967

April 2022:           1 547 113

May 2022:            1 558  562

June 2022:            1 653 227

SABC2 top-rated show:

June 2021:             4 734 276

July 2021:              5 840 203

August 2021:         4 166 031

September 2021:    3 696 060

October 2021:         3 643 585

November 2021:     3 553 242

December 2021:     3 672 139

January 2022:         3 952 923

February 2022:       3 300  031

March 2022:           3 309 806

April 2022:             3 285 619

May 2022:              2 408 898

June 2022:              1 885 401

SABC2 20th rated show:

June 2021:              562 390

July 2021:               716 496

August 2021:          533 571

September 2021:    511 761

October 2021:         437 448

November 2021:     561 974

December 2021:     495 536

January 2022:         491 980

February 2022:       440 633

March 2022:           379 094

April 2022:             456 635

May 2022:              400 620

June 2022:              399 844

SABC3 top-rated show:

June 2021:             731 009

July 2021:              769 858

August 2021:         733 963

September 2021:    1 031 635

October 2021:        968 107

November 2021:    597 534

December 2021:    491 171

January 2022:        652 702

February 2022:      490 709

March 2022:          576 562

April 2022:            793 301

May 2022:             518 197

June 2022:             596 374

SABC3 20th rated show:

June 2021:               277 417

July 2021:                327 316

August 2021:           292 736

September 2021:      291 793

October 2021:          267 159

November 2021:      251 032

December 2021:       245 209

January 2022:          312 382

February 2022:        229 714

March 2022:            317 634

April 2022:              314 518  

May 2022:               249 813

June 2022:               229 175

About the slide in the SABC ratings, Chris Botha, Park Advertising group managing director, tells TVwithThinus that falling linear TV ratings is not unique to the South African public broadcaster, but that what's happening with TV audiences is worse in South Africa.

"Firstly, let's be clear: Linear television ratings across the world are dropping. So it's not an 'SABC thing' or even a 'South African thing' – it is a problem the world over. Now in South Africa, the picture is worse than the rest of the world for a number of reasons."

"It's not just one thing – it is actually a confluence of circumstances. Firstly, this is South Africa's worst ever year for Eskom load shedding. The numbers clearly show that load shedding has an enormous impact on TV viewership."

"Secondly, there is the government rollout of the DTT project. As transmitters are being switched off in certain provinces we have noted that this has resulted in drops in audience."

"Thirdly, the competition is only increasing. The amount of streaming providers popping up is scary. Netflix, Disney+, TelkomOne, BritBox, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+, Google Play and VIU, just to name a few, are all eating away at what used to be a strong and healthy audience," Chris Botha says.

"Then there are also issues with the TAMS (Television Audience Measurement Survey) panel balance that is being addressed at the moment."

Competition will only increase

Chris Botha says South Africa's linear TV audience erosion is a big concern for the entire industry.

"The Advertising Media Forum (AMF) has engaged with the BRCSA (Broadcast Research Council of South Africa) to address the drop in TV ratings - not only for the SABC but for TV broadcasts as a whole," he says.

"Our clients are investing millions of rands to reach consumers, and when the investment delivers a subpar return, everyone gets twitchy."

"As an industry we do well when the SABC does well. They remain South Africa's biggest media owner, so we are actively working with them as best we can to try and mitigate the circumstances."

"However, things like load shedding is completely and entirely out of our control, so we have to make due with what we have."

Chris Botha says "the world of broadcast television is rapidly changing".

"The consumer will never have fewer choices than what they have right now. The competition is only increasing. Loadshedding might go away. DTT will eventually settle audiences down. The TAMS panel will be balanced. But competition is here to stay."

"The SABC and other terrestrial broadcasters need to make a plan to compete with the OTT suppliers like Netflix, MultiChoice's Showmax and Amazon Prime Video - otherwise the slide in audience and revenue will only continue." 

Trying to stem losses

Since early July, TVwithThinus asked the SABC repeatedly for comment on various questions pertaining to the SABC's falling TV ratings for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

The SABC was asked whether its audience erosion is a concern, what the broadcaster is making about Eskom's electricity blackouts, e.tv's ratings rise since viewers without analogue access are sitting over e.tv which hasn't switched off its analogue signals, what the SABC's plan and strategy is for ratings stabilisation and what the impact of payback and make-good ads are when the SABC is unable to deliver promised ratings during which ad spots were sold. 

Ndindi Cola, SABC spokesperson, declined to answer any of the specific questions and told TVwithThinus in a general statement that "The SABC has a mitigation plan in place to improve its audience and market share, however the internal strategies cannot be shared in the public domain, but the public will see the results in the future industry ratings".

South Africa's High Court orders a technical delay of the country's analogue TV switch-off date from April to July 2022.

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's high court has ordered the country's government and its department of communications and digital technologies to technically delay the country's analogue television signal switch-off date from the end of March to the end of June 2022.

While the Pretoria High Court found that the government has done enough to help poor TV households get a free set-top box (STB), it also ruled that STBs for more than 507 000 households who have registered by 31 October 2021 to receive one, must be handed out and properly installed by 30 June 2022.

By the end of September another 261 000 households got STBs but millions of households still require a means to access DTT and risk losing their free TV access in the country and being wiped from the ratings system as households watching television. 

More than 8.25 million poor South Africans will be left without free-to-air television if analogue signals are terminated, with around half (4 million) of e.tv's viewers falling in this group.

In South Africa's long-delayed digital migration process to DTT, the government started switching off Sentech's analogue transmitters since March 2021, with five provinces that have had their analogue signals cut, including the Free State, Northern Cape, North West province, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.

The Western Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape have not yet lost their analogue signals and collectively comprise 68% of South Africa's total population.

eMedia took the government to court saying the suddenly-rushed date of analogue switch-off of 31 March 2022 is not realistic and will damage free-to-air broadcast ratings in the country like its e.tv channel, with the SABC that eventually joined eMedia after its rating also started falling, in criticising the minister's date decision.

Fin24 first reported that the Pretoria High Court has ruled that the government and department of communications must push out the switch-off date by a further three months to the end of June 2022.

The additional three months for digital migration from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) is far short of what eMedia wanted.

The High Court in its judgment said "It is in the interest of the country, the economy and for South Africans in general that the digital migration be finalised".

The High Court ordered e.tv to pay 50% of the minister of communications' legal costs, and the full legal costs of Vodacom and the broadcasting regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) who were two respondents in the court case.

eMedia told TVwithThinus on Tuesday in response to a media query that "e.tv notes the judgment of the High Court and is currently giving consideration to its legal options".

CTV warns: Millions of South African viewers to lose free TV access in government's rushed switch-off plan.

by Thinus Ferreira

Cape Town TV (CTV) is joining the chorus of extremely concerned voices warning about the South African government's suddenly-rushed plan to switch off all analogue TV signals in the country at the end of the month, warning that millions of viewers will lose their TV access and that it will damage free-to-air television and TV ratings.

It comes as e.tv's case against the government's switch-off date will be heard in the Pretoria high court on Monday and Tuesday 14 and 15 March.

After South Africa's minister of communications and digital technologies Khumbudzo Ntshavheni suddenly switched to an aggressive province-by-province analogue TV signals switch-off schedule in 2021 - with the digital migration process to digital terrestrial television (DTT) now envisioned to end by 31 March - free-to-air TV ratings have started to fall as broadcasters lose viewers who haven't switched to set-top boxes (STBs) or new TV sets, and affecting ad rates.

After Sentech's analogue transmission towers for the SABC were switched off in the Free State - the first province to lose analogue television signals - TV viewers of the public broadcaster in 2021 plunged by a fifth (20%), with the SABC losing almost half of its TV audience (46%) in the Northern Cape and 34% of its TV ratings in the North West after those provinces lost their analogue transmissions.

eMedia took the decision to take the government to court to postpone the pronounced cut-off date of 31 March, with the case which will be heard today and tomorrow in the Pretoria high court.

Civil society groups like the Right2Know Campaign warn that the government is going to leave millions of ordinary South Africans without television access after 31 March and unable to get news, information and education programming.

In a statement, the department of communications and digital technologies says it "has noted with concern the misinformation and false claims that there is a pending loss of free-to-air television in South Africa".

"The misinformation seeks to create unnecessary anxiety about the end of dual illumination period and the gazetted analogue switch-off date of 31 March 2022. The claim that 14 million South Africans are going to lose free-to-air television on 31st March 2022 are preponderous at best and a figment of imagination at worst."

The department says poor households earning less than R3500 per month who applied for a government-subsidised STB by 31 October 2021 "will be connected before the switch-off and those who applied after the cut-off date will be connected within 3 to 6 months of the analogue switch-off date".

SA 'ill-prepared for analogue TV switch-off'

Like e.tv, the community TV station Cape Town TV says it is fighting to keep its analogue broadcast signal on-air "as the country stumbles towards the end of analogue TV transmission".

CTV says many of its current free-to-air viewers will lose access to the channel on 31 March since there are "too few digital TV receivers in the market".

"Our research shows that South Africans are very ill-prepared for the switch-off," says Karen Thorne, CTV station director.

"This presents a serious problem for all free-to-air broadcasters on the DTT platform. This is why e.tv is suing the government to postpone the analogue switch-off and its legal documents include community TV broadcasters as affected parties."

She says poor households who register to get an STB will still have to wait "many months before you get the device".

"Most of the existing government stocks have been earmarked for the 1.3 million people who have already registered and there is no telling when more will be available. The global chip shortage is a complicating factor that will extend the wait."

Millions of viewers to lose TV access

Karen Thorne says "We are certain that millions of South Africans are going to lose access to television if the analogue switch-off takes place as scheduled at the end of March".

"We know that less than half of the government decoders have been installed nationally and there are few decoders available for those who do not qualify for the subsidised devices. The major retail stores don't stock them so you have to find one at a specialist retailer or online supplier."

"We don't know how many digital TV sets with integrated tuners are out there, but we do know from the Broadcasting Research Council (BRC) that the proportion of television households that only receive free-to-air television stands at around 5.6 million."

"Multiply that figure by an average of 2.5 people in a TV household and that gives you an estimate of 14 million affected people. Many of these viewers are going to find themselves without television on April Fool's Day if analogue signals are switched off, particularly in the cities."

She says that a significant loss of audience will be tough on free-to-air broadcasters and could even be catastrophic for community TV channels like Cape Town TV.

"But the woes of the community TV sector don't end there - SA’s community television stations are being forced to shift from their local focus to become provincial broadcasters."

"While the expansion of broadcast footprints will bring more potential viewers into the ambit of community TV activities, it poses significant challenges for community broadcasters."

"For one thing, it dramatically increases transmission costs because many more transmitters must be hired from the national signal distributor, Sentech."

"CTV's signal distribution costs will rise from R60 000 a month to R1.8 million a month - an increase of 2900%," she says.

"We have been raising this issue with the government for many years but nothing has been done on the policy front to address this problem."

Rush to sell spectrum damaging SA TV

Karen Thorne says "The prime driver for the analogue switch-off is the auction of frequency spectrum to cellular operators, which has just taken place. Cape Town TV operates on the frequency 559.25 MHz, which is not a part of the digital dividend, so postponing switching it off will not disrupt the spectrum auction and the allocation of frequencies to bidders in that market."

"We have asked Khumbudzo Ntshavheni to postpone the analogue switch-off for this frequency so that the dual illumination period is extended for Cape Town TV. This will enable us to continue reaching Capetonians until such time as there is a reasonable business case for CTV to exist in a sustainable fashion on the DTT network."

CTV says it has joined the #SaveFreeTV movement launched by civil society organisations concerned that the government's scheduled analogue switch-off date of 31 March will deprive millions of South Africans from access to television due to the shortage of DTT receivers.

"CTV shares the concerns that e.tv and the #SaveFreeTV campaign are raising to postpone the analogue-switch-off in the major population areas until there is an adequate base of free-to-air viewers on DTT."

Karen Thorne says the South African government is "not paying attention to the fate of free-to-air television after the analogue switch-off in its rush to sell-off frequency spectrum to the cellular operators".

"We understand that the SABC saw a 30% drop-off in viewership in the Free State after its transmitters were switched off in that province. Even this level of viewership loss will hit community channels hard, but they are likely to lose even higher proportions as their lower-income audiences scramble to find viewing options."

"We want to see an orderly, well-managed and realistic process of migrating people to DTT," she says.

"This needs more time than is presently being allowed and the government must engage in a constructive fashion with all stakeholders to ensure that this happens successfully."

31 March 2022 - The final switch-off of South Africa's analogue TV signals.

by Thinus Ferreira

31 March 2022 - This is the date that South Africa's analogue TV signals across the country will finally be switched off when the remaining analogue transmitters will cease broadcasting in the country's long-delayed process of digital migration.

On Monday night Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, South Africa's minister of communications and digital technologies reiterated that South Africa will cease to broadcast analogue services on 31 March 2022 and complete the country's switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT).

While the SABC has remained silent, eMedia Holdings has warned that South Africa's TV ratings could be negatively impacted when existing South African TV households suddenly lose access to TV signals if they haven't switched over to a method to receive digital transmissions.

This would wipe TV households of the television ratings system, which would negatively impact advertising revenue for all broadcasters, since ad rates are determined by viewership.

On 8 February the minister ceremonially switched off the last of Sentech's SABC analogue signal transmitters in the Limpopo province, making it the fifth province in South Africa after the Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Mpumalanga which no longer have analogue signals beamed to TV viewers.

Plagued by industry infighting, corruption, cost-overruns, court cases, administrative bungling, a lack of leadership and constantly revolving ministerial figureheads, constantly changing regulations, encoding standards and codes, as well as encryption fights, South Africa is more than a decade behind in the switch to DTT since South Africa in 2006 agreed to the International Telecommunication Union's agreement to complete the switch by June 2015.

On 31 March 2022 the process of "dual illumination" - broadcasting the same TV signals as both analogue and DTT - will end.

Khumbudzo Ntshavheni says Sentech, providing signal distribution services to the South African public broadcaster, has ensured that the digital broadcast signal for the SABC has reached 100% through the terrestrial networks and those of pay-TV services like MultiChoice's DStv satellite TV service.

Meanwhile, many poor TV households who qualify for a free set-top box (STB), distributed through the struggling South African Post Office (SAPO), have not yet applied or received a decoder to continue to watch free-to-air TV channels like those of the SABC or e.tv.

Khumbudzo Ntshavheni says she has "considered progress with implementation of the cabinet decision to assist indigent TV-owning households with access to set-top boxes".

She says she is "satisfied with the number of indigent households that have registered for government assistance vis-à-vis number of available set-top boxes; progress with set-top boxes installations; and progress with the analogue switch-off in various provinces".

SA TV 2021: A shockwave year in television filled with loss, lockdown and an octopus that won an Oscar.

by Thinus Ferreira

During South African television's tumultuous 2021 - bearing witness to shocking unrest and looting, neverending loadshedding and an unfolding Covid-crisis - the one reassuring constant was TV soaps and telenovelas like Uzalo, with the nation's nightly collection of comforting primetime series stretching from Generations to Isono that continued to provide a sense of uninterrupted assurance and "normalcy" in a world seemingly gone mad.

In probably the worst year on record for South Africa's TV and film industry - rocked by a shockwave of thousands of permanent and temporary job losses as work evaporated, hundreds of deaths due to Covid-19, as well as countless and repeated Covid-19 production shutdowns across multiple series under Lockdown Level 4 - 2021's big unrecognised TV miracle is that the TV soap operas endured.

As the industry was upended behind-the-scenes, TV channels kept broadcasting new episodes nightly during 2021 with its escapist local mix of fantasy, conflict, weddings and scandals, that continued to enthral a combined audience of millions of viewers across Southern Africa.

In 2021, South Africans watched Squid Game on Netflix, Devilsdorp on Showmax and welcomed House of Zwide on e.tv. 

Viewers sat transfixed before eNCA, Newzroom Africa and SABC News to see former president Jacob Zuma being arrested and going to jail, and how South Africans ransacked shopping malls. 

They huddled together in front of the soft glow of their TV screens when president Cyril Ramaphosa beckoned for yet another "family meeting".

Love Island South Africa on M-Net flopped but The Bachelorette SA was more successful. The Real Housewives of Durban and Survivor South Africa: Immunity Island (forced to film in South Africa on the Eastern Cape coast) were hits. 

South Africans got their Friday episode of 7de Laan on SABC2 back (that also reached 5000 episodes). 

While kykNET's new on-air rebranding was more successful, SABC3's rebranding to "S3" saw the channel's already anaemic ratings only fall further this year while its Isidingo replacement, The Estate, failed in luring the viewers it should and likely on borrowed time. 

uBettina Wethu (South Africa's Ugly Betty-version) wasn't the success it could have been. Showmax tried Temptation Island SA as both it and Netflix added further local South African content to their catalogues.

MultiChoice's Showmax launched its first South African telenovela, The Wife, but the most expensive South African drama series yet produced, Blood Psalms, missed its October debut and was pushed to February 2022 because the department of trade, industry and competition failed to pay the millions due to the show in the country's broken film rebate scheme.

MultiChoice introduced DStv subscribers to Korean telenovelas ("K-drama") with tvN, kept losing DStv Premium subscribers, while M-Net brought pay-TV subscribers Harry and Meghan sit-down talk with Oprah.

The SABC that turned 85 completed its retrenchment plan getting rid of hundreds of workers after which the public broadcaster once again became embroiled in serious allegations of SABC News editorial interference. 

In 2021 fewer people than ever (down to 21% bothered to still pay a SABC TV Licence with plans to scrap it altogether and replace it with a new type of tax.

The SABC officially launched SABC Sport as a TV channel, while SuperSport did its best to try and bring live sports back this year and branched out into more school sports coverage.

Britbox SA and eMedia's eVOD both launched as two new video streaming services in South Africa in 2021 while ViacomCBS Networks Africa abruptly cancelled its MTV Africa Music Awards it tried to revive this year. 

The M-Net City channel changed to Me, Glow TV was removed from Openview but had to be returned after a court case, and StarSat shed more TV channels this year. 

The long-delayed completion of the switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) broadcasting in South Africa was yet again postponed, with new warnings that suddenly switching off TV signals to millions of viewers who don't have set-top boxes to receive the new signals, will damage South Africa's TV ratings system.

Meanwhile worsening Eskom blackouts continued to have a debilitating impact during 2021 on TV ratings, damaging all broadcasters and advertisers with loadshedding that wiped millions of TV households from the national viewership data.

Moja Love (DStv 157) - which had to suspend Jub Jub on Uyajola 9/9 as its most-watched show after rape allegations - and Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) were the two most-watched pay-TV channels in South Africa in 2021. 

SABC1 remained the most-watched free-to-air TV channel. More South African TV news reporters were attacked and robbed this year than ever before.

South African viewers lost FOX after 11 years, The Bold and the Beautiful (again) and weather presenters on eNCA and eNuus. The ratings for the 17th season of Idols on Mzansi Magic plunged as Somizi Mhlongo exited as a judge after serious allegations of physical abuse.

We lost Africa's most influential woman in television, MultiChoice's content boss Aletta Alberts, to Covid, as well as producer-actor Shona Ferguson in July, and an unending TV treasure chest list of names gone too soon who have enriched and who were deeply woven into the tapestry of South Africa's TV industry. 

We lost icons from Franz Marx to Shaleen Surtie-Richards, with calls that more must be done to support and protect South African artists and performers while the South African government for another year refused to make the Performers' Protection Amendment Bill (PPAB) a law that would ensure that actors are paid residuals for TV rebroadcasts.

We said goodbye to LIVE AMP on SABC1 after 25 seasons, as well as the beloved TV news anchor Noxolo Grootboom who read her final TV news bulletin with even Cyril Ramaphosa moving his national address out of the way so that the nation could watch her swansong first. 

Jeremy Maggs, Jane Dutton and Uveka Rangappa left eNCA with no goodbye. 

South Africa's TV and film industry and film lost at least 18 669 jobs (59%) over the past year due to Covid. 

And in-between the tumult, a little film on TV about a friendly South African octopus won an Oscar.