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.

Khalik Sherrif in aspirational and first public speech as new eMedia CEO says e.tv's free-to-air satellite TV service Openview is transitioning 'from the outbuilding to the main house'.

In his first public speech as new CEO of eMedia Investments, Khalik Sherrif says e.tv's rebranded and fast-growing free-to-air digital satellite TV service, Openview, is moving to the "main house", shedding its image as a TV service just for domestic workers and granny.

In a fiery and aspirational public speech at the exclusive black tie launch event of Openview's new TV commercial, Khalik Sherrif who took over as new eMedia CEO since the beginning of this month, weighed in on Openview's growth, future prospects and ambitions, and the platform's role in South Africa switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT) - a process known as digital migration.

The experienced veteran TV executive who has been with eMedia for over 15 years, started with an anecdote of how e.tv that in October celebrated two decades of broadcasting in the country, helped to change and shape the South African television landscape.

"When e.tv started, nobody gave us a chance. Twenty years ago they said, 'What do those guys know about TV? Who are they? They are not going to last?' Twenty years later we are still here and we are growing because we dared to be different over all those years."

"When all of you grew up watching the TV news at 20:00 on the SABC, there came these little fellas and they said 'South Africa, stop. Don't watch your news at 20:00 anymore, watch your news at 19:00. And we moved the whole nation."

"When we put our eNews at 19:00 so many years ago, everybody else put the news at 19:00. Do you know why they did that? Because we said 'Watch the news on e.tv at 19:00 because by 20:00 it's history' and they came along to join us at 19:00."

About digital terrestrial TV migration - the switch from analogue to digital TV in South Africa, Khalik Sherrif said "8 million South African TV households have already been migrated - 6.5 million on DStv and 1.5 million on Openview."

"South Africa has 14 million TV households which means that another 5.5 million TV households still need to be migrated."

"We had a meeting with the department of communications, saying 'We will help you to get to the other 5.5 million'. The department of communications will give R400 per household that can't afford to buy a set-top box (STB), and they will go out to the market, and they will buy a box."

"The department of communications has 500 000 more STB to sell and they're not manufacturing any more. They will buy a box and they will buy Openview. Why? Because for the first time in the South African landscape there is world-class television in high definition (HD), for free," said Khalik Sherrif.

"People in South Africa will buy a STB at any of the retailers for about R400 and will then have world-class television - 20 channels on Openview at the moment; all of the SABC - SABC1, SABC2, SABC3, and all of e.tv - and e.tv isn't just one channel any more."

"There is eMovies, there is eExtra, eReality, there's OpenNews, there's Star Life, there are plenty of them," said Khalik Sherrif, "with Openview growing at 30 000 to 35 000 box activations per month."

Openview: Transitioning from the outbuilding to the main house
"We started Openview on this premise: When the government was pushing digital television to us, the little fellas in Hyde Park realised the following - that we need to own some property in the TV space," said Khalik Sherrif.

"The SABC is the public broadcaster. MultiChoice has their property in Randburg which is the DStv decoder. What do we do? If MultiChoice is fed up of us one day and kicks us out, where do we take our channels? If we maybe don't like the [government-supplied] DTT [STB] performance because it's inferior and standard definition and not high definition, what do we do?"

"So we decided 5 years ago, let's launch our own little thing. We started it with OpenView HD, and now it's Openview.  Let me tell you, when we started it, we made some mistakes. We made some mistakes," said Khalik Sherrif.

"And the mistake we made is that we positioned it for the outbuilding. We didn't think about it really. People were buying it for the outside house. If it was not for the helpers, it was for granny. Today you are witnessing the transition of Openview from the outbuilding to the main house - that's where we belong," said Khalif Sherrif.

"Mark my words: Openview is going to be the biggest thing in South African television. Why do I so confidently say this? Because throughout the world, traditional pay-TV is declining. Free-to-air television viewing is increasing."

"If you visit the United Kingdom, you'll know that the most popular medium of receiving television is Freeview - not Sky, not BT. Freeview. Why is this so?"

"While a lot of people are lucky enough to be able to afford pay-TV, they're not watching it because they're watching Netflix. We're streaming this; we're getting Amazon Prime Video. So you're viewership of traditional pay-TV is declining and you're viewership of Netflix is increasing."

"And as that happens, people are coming to the realisation of 'What am I really paying them for? I'm not watching them anymore?' And when you seize to pay them, when you stop paying for television, you know what will happen? You won't throw away your TV set because your lounge suite has to face somewhere," said Khalik Sherrif.

"The TV set belongs in the lounge and when you stop paying for TV and your TV set is not receiving pay-TV anymore, your TV set will receive something else - it will receive Netflix, it will receive Amazon, it will receive Google. It will receive Apple. It will receive Facebook."

"But you will also need to know the local news, you will also need to catch up with the local TV soapies, you will also need to know the local gossip, so you will have Openview. Don't say to anybody I didn't tell you," Khalik Sherriff concluded.

Competition Commission rules that MultiChoice and the SABC's TV channels contract for SABC News and SABC Encore amounts to a notifiable merger and should be declared.

South Africa's Competition Commission on Friday ruled that the highly-controversial TV channels contract for SABC News (DStv 404) and SABC Encore (DStv 156) between Naspers' pay-TV arm, MultiChoice and the South African public broadcaster constitutes a merger and should be declared as such.

The Competition Commission ruled that the controversial channel distribution agreement between MultiChoice and the SABC amounting to hundreds of millions of rand first signed in 2013 constitutes a notifiable merger, and has ordered MultiChoice and the SABC to register the transaction as a merger or be in breach of South Africa's competition laws.

It recently emerged that MultiChoice allegedly placed pressure on the SABC to, as a prerequisite for signing the deal, back MultiChoice's position on the encryption standard to be used for set-top boxes (STBs) in South Africa's switch from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT).

After the signing of the extremely controversial deal, the SABC paid its controversial famously matricless and now fired former chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng a massive R11 million "signing bonus".

The Competition Commission's ruling comes after the Caxton media group and the public broadcasting and media freedom pressure groups SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) appealed against a ruling of the Competition Appeals Court at the Constitutional Court and won, granting the Competition Commission the right to investigate whether the channel carriage agreement constituted a notifiable merger.

The Competition Commission has now ruled that while the agreement for the TV channels provided by the SABC to MultiChoice doesn't constitute a merger between MultiChoice and the SABC, that MultiChoice's role in influencing the SABC's stance on the government and public policy regarding STB encryption does represent a notifiable merger between Naspers' MultiChoice and the South African public broadcaster.

"The commission will call upon MultiChoice and the SABC to file the transaction in terms of 13A(1) of the Act as a merger," says the Competition Commission.

"If the parties fail to notify the transaction as a merger, the commission will exercise its rights in terms of the Act to refer the matter as a contravention [of the Act]."

"The SABC categorically and unequivocally undertook in favour of MultiChoice not to encrypt all of its channel signals in respect of its free-to-air channels transmitted on its digital TV platform."

"The commission found that the encryption of SABC's free-to-air channels, including STB control, would have enabled new entrants into the market and that the agreement had the effect of protecting MultiChoice's dominance in the pay-TV market."

"In terms of the Competition Act, the ability by one company to materially influence the policy of another company through various legal instruments, including an agreement, constitutes a notifiable merger transaction which must first be approved by competition authorities before it is implemented."

"The reason why the Competition Act requires that such agreements should first be scrutinised by the competition authorities before they are implemented is because they could have a significant impact on the competitive process and raise significant public interest issues, which ought to be investigated by competition authorities."

"In this case, the SABC and MultiChoice failed to seek prior approval of the commission before implementing the agreement."

The Competition Commission has filed a report with this finding with the Competition Tribunal.


SABC 'concerned'
The SABC's spokesperson Neo Momodu on Monday in a statement in response to a written media enquiry from TVwithThinus said that "the SABC has noted with concern the Competition Commission's ruling on the SABC and MultiChoice agreement entered into in July 2013 and which has since expired".

"The SABC has since entered into a new commercial channel supply agreement with MultiChoice which in the SABC's understanding, does not constitute a merger."

"The SABC board is reviewing the Commission's recommendations in relation to the encryption part of the 2013 agreement and will respond appropriately in due course. The SABC remains committed to ensure compliance with applicable competition laws".


MultiChoice says it's not a merger
Joe Heshu, MultiChoice's group executive for corporate affairs didn't respond to a written media enquiry TVwithThinus made on Monday about the ruling.

Joe Heshu told Business Day that "we've noted the recommendation of the Competition Commission".

"Our view remains that the 2013 agreement between MultiChoice and the SABC was not a merger but a standard channel supply agreement."

"We have not been presented with the new facts to which the commission refers, nor the opportunity to refute them. We will make further representations in the process to be conducted before the Competition Tribunal."

Democratic Alliance political party reveals ANC party is branding digital terrestrial TV set-top box messages as election marketing; says communications minister lied about new mid-2019 deadline from the ITU to complete digital migration.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) political party wants to know why a logo from the ANC political party and ANC election messaging is appearing on pamphlets encouraging South African to collect free, government-sponsored set-top boxes (STBs) - the decoders people need to watch digital terrestrial television (DTT) as part of the South African government's botched and long deyaled digital migration process from analogue to digital TV.

The DA's member of parliament, Marian Shinn and the party's shadow minister of telecommunications and postal services, on Sunday in a statement said the pamphlets "is a blatant abuse of taxpayers' money and must be stopped".

She also revealed that the department of communications' latest new deadline of June 2019, apparently instituted by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) after South Africa missed all of the other previous deadlines including the 17 June 2015 deadline, is apparently bogus.

"The minister of communications now claims that a new deadline of mid-2019 has been agreed to with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a date that coincides with South Africa's next general election".

"Correspondence I have had with the ITU office in Geneva, shows that there is no 2019 deadline for South Africa," said Marian Shinn.

"A parliamentary question I submitted to the minister asking documentary proof of the 'new' deadline has not been answered," said Marian Shinn.

Marian Shinn says she has written to communications minister, Nomvula Mokonyane, the cabinet leader of the Broadcasting DigitalMigration (BDM) project of which the DTT set-top boxes are a component - and responsible for its marketing "to put an immediate stop to the flyers' distribution and have them destroyed".

"I have also written to the ANC National Executive Committee member, Dr Siyabonga Cwele, minister of telecommunications and postal services, who is responsible for the government entities procuring and distributing the decoders to demand an investigation within the ANC to determine who instigated the abuse of a government-funded project under his watch for election purposes and to hold these people to account."

STBs are currently being given out to poor South African households who have to prove that they're earning less than R3200 per month.

The much-delayed digital migration project aims to bring all broadcasting in South Africa from analogue to digital, freeing up spectrum bands to be used by mobile broadband products and services.

Various misguided political decisions, as suspicions over MultiChoice's alleged undue influence on the government's policy regarding conditional access (encryption) of the government-sponsored decoders, as well as drawn-out in-fighting and court battles between MultiChoice and e.tv, as well as other broadcasters and manufacturers, have delayed South Africa's DTT process for a decade.

A SABC TV licence no longer required to get a free government subsidised set-top box for digital terrestrial television, says communications minister Faith Muthambi.

Poor South Africans will no longer be required to have a SABC licence or a paid-up SABC TV licence to qualify to receive a free government subsidised decoder in order to keep watching the SABC's digital terrestrial television (DTT) channels.

The minister of communications, Faith Muthambi, made the announcement in her communications budget speech in parliament on Friday.

South Africa is years behind in the switch from analogue to digital terrestrial TV signals, a process known as digital migration. South Africa missed the internationally agreed deadline of June 2015 by which to complete the switch-over.

It requires South African TV households without satellite TV to buy what is known as a set-top box (STB) - basically a TV decoder of around R800 and in a lot of cases a new antenna - in order to keep watching existing and future-added TV channels when the analogue signals of TV channels are turned off.

The government is subsidising these free STBs for millions of poor households, but during registering in some of the provinces where the process started, they had to provide proof of a valid SABC TV licence.

Problems started when families were turned down.

It meant that millions of households in South Africa would eventually start to lose their free-to-air TV access and channels, like those from the public broadcaster.

This would be damaging to the SABC with the public broadcaster that would eventually start to lose viewership market share as it starts to gradually lose ratings and the audience who watch SABC channels, but don't have a SABC licence.

Now these households will be able to get a subsidised government STB to continue their free TV access although they don't have a SABC TV licence or a paid-up licence.

Faith Muthambi's announced regarding the de-linking of the TV licence requirement from the STB subsidy registration process comes after a meeting between the SABC and the department of communications.

"We have in the recent past noticed a slow registration take-up due to the TV licence requirement and insufficient funding to connect the public and] consumer awareness campaign," Faith Muthambi told parliament.

She also said that she told the SABC to "clean up their TV licence base to have accurate and reliable information on who owns a TV set in South Africa to enable proper infrastructure planning".

The Support Public Broadcasting Coalition (SOS Coalition) welcome the move to drop the SABC TV licence requirement for STBs, saying "this will certainly reduce the burden on South Africa's poor, and accelerate and widen their ability to access set-top boxes so that no-one is left behind in the digital migration project".

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago didn't respond to a media enquiry made two weeks ago asking why the SABC agreed to dropping the SABC TV licence requirement for a DTT set-top box.

In addition, Faith Muthambi on Friday announced in parliament that analogue TV signals will only be switched off after 80% of the existing analogue TV households have migrated and switched to DTT.