Willington Ngwepe appointed as new CEO of South Africa's broadcasting regulator, Icasa.

Willington Ngwepe has been appointed as the new CEO of South Africa's broadcasting regulator, Icasa, after he's been acting CEO since early July.

Willington Ngwepe took over from the suspended Pakamile Pongwana who quit in August and left under a could before he could face charges over alleged sexual harassment.

Willington Ngwepe has been the chief operating officer (COO) of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) since September 2014.

"In this role he has been part of the Icasa leadership team that oversaw the implementation of Icasa's organisational realignment in 2015," says the broadcasting regulator.

"The council is excited about the appointment of Willington Ngwepe and we have full confidence in his leadership and management skills," says Paris Mashile, Icasa's acting council chairperson.

"He is indeed the ideal incumbent to usher Icasa into the new phase as we tackle some of the burning issues such as the high cost of data, spectrum-related projects, and so on."

Willington Ngwepe holds a BA (law), LLB and LLM (communications law) degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand as well as LLM (tax) from the University of South Africa.

BREAKING. Suspended Icasa CEO Pakamile Pongwana gone under a cloud from broadcasting regulator by 'mutual' decision after sexual harassment claims.

The beleaguered and suspended boss of South Africa's broadcasting regulator Icasa Phakamile Pongwana has quit before he got pushed with Icasa announcing in a terse Wednesday evening statement that the embattled Pakamile Pongwana is out by "mutual separation".

The controversial Pakamile Pongwana was placed on "precautionary suspension" by Icasa on 6 July pending a disciplinary hearing.

According to reports, Pakamile Pongwana was suspended over alleged sexual harassment claims and is now gone from Icasa under a cloud instead of facing a disciplinary hearing.

On Wednesday evening Icasa said that it's chief operating officer (COO) Willington Ngwepe will continue to act as Icasa's acting CEO until a new CEO has been appointed.

Icasa didn't elaborate further and didn't specify what golden handshake payout Pakamile Pongwana will be getting, if any, since his contract only ends a year from now in September 2018.

Pakamile Pongwana has been the Icasa CEO since November 2013.

In July the City Press newspaper reported that legal opinions given to Icasa found sufficient ground to charge Pakamile Pongwana to a disciplinary hearing for alleged sexual harassment of an employee.

Pakamile Pongwana allegedly also "displayed gross insolence and insubordination, which are dismissable offences as they constitute misconduct. This related to the disrespectful, condescending and aggressive" way that he treated Icasa council members.

Icasa CEO: MultiChoice gives good product - but why can't you 'pay as you need?' Broadcasting regulator wants more pay-TV competition in SA.

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The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) regulating broadcasting in South Africa told parliament that South Africa needs competition in the pay-TV market, although new Icasa CEO Pakamile Pongwana appeared clueless about how the existing global pay-TV model actually works.

Icasa is the regulator of broadcasting in South Africa where, within the pay-TV sphere MultiChoice's DStv and pay-TV broadcaster M-Net currently dominate, along with struggling On Digital Media's (ODM) StarSat.

Despite multiple attempts to licence more pay-TV broadcasters Icasa's process over the past decade has failed to ensure viable other pay-TV players within the South African subscription television market.

Icasa CEO Pakamile Pongwana told parliament's portfolio committee on communications on Friday that South Africa "needs more competition in the subscription television arena".

Members of parliament like Cameron MacKenzie told Icasa that MultiChoice is a great product and that it is successful as a pay-TV provider with the DStv service its been providing to South African pay-TV subscribers because MultiChoice gives people the content they want to see and all in one service.

"The issue around pay-TV and MultiChoice providing good product, the question that is a challenge for all of us - whilst it is a good product - is I don't need premium TV," said Pakamile Pongwana.

"I probably only watch 3 or 4 TV channels out of the totality of that DStv bouquet. And how many consumers are actually watching that way? Why don't you pay as you need? That is just a food for thought," said Pakamile Pongwana.

Icasa tells parliament: Perhaps community TV stations in South Africa should be converted to provincial TV broadcasters to help pay for DTT.

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The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) told parliament that community television stations in South Africa should possibly be converted to provincial TV stations so that they can help pay, help lower, and help offset the cost of digital broadcasting when South Africa eventually switch from analogue to digital television broadcasting.

Icasa which regulates broadcasting in South Africa, is raising the option of changing the community TV licenses issued to the growing number of community TV stations in South Africa to provincial TV licenses.

With a bigger footprint, and broadcasting to a bigger audience across an entire province instead of a city, a community TV station will get more viewers, higher ratings and more advertising and sponsorship income.

Icasa reasons that these provincial TV stations will then have to pay more and contribute more to the overall cost of broadcasting signal distribution in South Africa.

In terms of South Africa's migration from analogue television to digital terrestrial television (DTT), a process known as digital migration, Pakamile Pongwana said it is expensive and that "more broadcasting entities" are needed to help pay for the infrastructure being set up for digital terrestrial television.

Icasa has had discussions with Sentech, the parastatal broadcast signal distributor, about the DTT rate card because the prices that will be charged to broadcasters for making their digital TV channel signals available are costly.

"It is costly. Even Sentech has indicated that it is costly, but says it is because they're forced to distribute their cost among a few entities".

"If we licence more entities in free-to-air (FTA) TV broadcasters then there's more entities who can share the cost," said Pakamile Pongwana.

"Some possibilities is that there are TV channels available in certain provinces. Perhaps we need to licence at provincial level. Perhaps we need to make sure that there's free-to-air TV broadcasters at provincial level. And even consider converting community TV stations to provincial licenses," said Pakamile Pongwana.

"Then Sentech has got a huge number of entities that they are able to charge for the infrastructure that they've rolled out".

"We provide signal distribution services to most of the community TV broadcasters in South Africa. We understand their problems," Setumo Mohapi, Sentech CEO, told parliament on Friday.

"We understand the sensitivity of the signal distribution costs to the cost of operating their services. We have previously reduced our tariffs. But we understand that that might not be enough".