'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.

South Africa's TV ratings system and broadcasters risk damage in new monthly analogue TV hard switch-off approach as signal transmitters are shut down in provinces before all viewers have switched to DTT or received set-top boxes.

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's TV ratings system risks getting damaged by the government's hard switch-off approach of analogue TV signal transmitters in communities across South Africa, which could leave millions of TV households without television access who haven't switched to digital terrestrial television (DTT) and who haven't received a free government set-top box (STB) or can't buy one.

It is estimated that there are more than 3 million South African TV households who are still on the analogue television platform.

These 3 million analogue TV households - in a new staggered monthly cut-off approach - are set to lose access to their TV signal over the next 9 months, with the process that could inflict damage to South Africa's TV ratings system and the so-called "TV households universe".

As a country South Africa has the most credible TV ratings system on the African continent for compiling daily, weekly and monthly viewership numbers for broadcasters and advertisers.

South Africa's TV rating system is the envy of other African markets where broadcasters, international TV channel distributors and advertisers are often forced to operate in the dark and have to make best-estimated guesses based on parsing other related marketing data and research in the absence of similarly comprehensive ratings data.

Now the credibility of the numbers-crunching used to compile ratings data for South African TV viewership is under threat after the country's department of communications and digital technologies have published a new list of analogue TV transmitters in various provinces being switched off, and that has started in the Free State this week.

The big issue is that the department - that is more than a decade late in completing the digital migration process from analogue to digital terrestrial television in South Africa - is now switching off analogue signals in succession in provinces but before all analogue viewers have actually switched over to digital TV. 

That will wipe an as yet undetermined number of TV viewers every month from now on from the total TV universe on which the current TV ratings metric is based and that is tallied using installed People Meters in homes across the country.

Meanwhile millions of DTT set-top boxes are gathering dust in South African Post Office warehouses that haven't been distributed to qualifying poorest households, with many more TV households who don't qualify for a free one and who have to spend their own money to buy an STB or new digital-signal enabled TV set.

Hard switch-off approach

The department's original digital migration plan stated that analogue transmitters won't be switched off before all viewers haven't been migrated to DTT successfully. The department has now switched to a "hard switch-off" approach where TV households simply lose access if they haven't switched and transmitters are switched off.

With the long-drawn-out process, the department and minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, are under huge pressure to complete the DTT migration in order to make the dividend of frequencies available after the switch away from analogue TV for things like next-generation mobile data systems like 5G.

The Broadcasting Research Council of South Africa (BRCSA) as the custodian body of the country's TV ratings system hasn't yet responded to a media enquiry made earlier this week seeking comment about the potential impact on South Africa's TAMS and how the ratings system is going to be impacted.

Analogue viewers who don't have access to digital TV are who are getting cut off monthly will have to be removed from the existing TV universe data as well.

It's unclear how the BRCSA will have to change or adjust the existing TV universe when analogue-only TV households start to disappear and lose access to television in the real world.

Free-to-air broadcasters like the SABC with its SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 channels, and eMedia Investments with its free-to-air commercial channel e.tv, are likely to be impacted the most if they have to adjust advertising rate cards to lower 30 second-ad spot pricing if ratings are lowered because the existing TV universe shrinks.

Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams on Tuesday in a statement revealed the new timeline for analogue signals to be cut and said that "it is anticipated that this process, which will be done province-by-province, will be completed by the end of March 2022".

On Monday the analogue TV signal was switched off in Boesmanskop and surrounding towns like Vanstadensrus, Zastron and Rouxville in the Xhariep District Municipality in the Eastern Free State near the Lesotho border.

That was followed on Tuesday by Ladybrand and the surrounding towns like Hobhouse, Tweespruit and Clocolan all losing their analogue TV signal. People who haven't switched to digital TV - mostly the poor people in rural communities - now have no access to television.

According to the department, the switch-off plans are to end analogue signals in the Free State by end of March 2021, Northern Cape by end of April 2021, Northern Cape by end of April 2021, the North West, Mpumalanga and Eastern Cape provinces by end of May 2021, Kwa-Zulu Natal by end of July 2021, the Western Cape by end of November 2021, Limpopo by end of December 2021, and finally Gauteng by end of January 2022.

"The department is collaborating with provincial governments and district municipalities to recruit local installers of government-subsided decoders in order to accelerate the implementation of the broadcasting digital migration," said Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams in the statement.

Poor households with a combined household income of less than R3 200 can get a free set-top box.

TV households who do not qualify for free government decoders have to buy an STB or an integrated digital television (IDTV) set that has DTT decoding capability built-in.

M-Net is switching off its analogue signal to M-Net decoders at the end of March - if you're one of these M-Net subscribers who haven't yet switched, here's what you need to do right now.

Pay-TV broadcaster M-Net is switching off its analogue M-Net signal to its M-Net decoders by the end of March.

Many M-Net subscribers have not yet switched to a specially customised M-Net GOtv package and a new digital decoder, and these longtime M-Net viewers are going to completely lose their signal in just over a month's time. 

People still watching M-Net through a M-Net decoder must call DStv extremely urgently on the specially dedicated number of 011 289 2270.

These M-Net subscribers will be helped so that they can be switched to either a special M-Net GO package of GOtv that includes the M-Net channel, or the DStv satellite service.

Many of these mostly older and Afrikaans speaking M-Net subscribers are not aware that they're going to lose their service, or have simply not bothered to switch to a digital M-Net channel version.

M-Net can no longer continue to keep its obsolete analogue M-Net decoders going and has to switch these subscribers over as part of the overall South African TV industry's change from analogue to digital terrestrial television (DTT), a process called digital migration.

It's however been difficult to get a hold of all of these legacy M-Net analogue subscribers, and M-Net and MultiChoice haven't had a ready-made like-for-like package available to switch these subscribers to.

MultiChoice South Africa's DTT pay-TV service GOtv doesn't have the premium M-Net channel included, but MultiChoice and M-Net did now create a special M-Net GO package that does have the M-Net channel included and is only available for existing M-Net analogue subscribers.

MultiChoice says that it has has been talking to our M-Net analogue customers for the last 3 years about digital migration.

If an existing M-Net analogue subscriber is in the growing GOtv DTT reception area where the digital signal can be received, they get a GOtv installation with M-Net GO.

MultiChoice says this "is a special package we created just for them which has M-Net and CSN included with free-to-air channels and costs the same as their current M-Net analogue."

"If they are not in the DTT reception area, they get a DStv satellite installation with M-Net GO."

MultiChoice is footing the bill of the switch-over and M-Net analogue subscribers don't have to be scared that it will cost them anything,or that they will lose out, or lose access to M-Net.

"To assist these long-time loyal customers, we pay for the decoder, the installation set-up and arrange for an accredited installer to come out at our expense."

"We’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to get hold of many of our M-Net analogue customers, so are now playing out a ticker tape across their screens asking them to contact us on 011 289 2270 so we can assist them."

"There is a variety of different options, depending on the current set up the customer has," says MultiChoice.

"Some M-Net analogue customers already have a DStv set up, while others just have their M-Net analogue. That is why it’s important that customers get in touch with us, so we can give them the offer that applies to them."

"M-Net analogue customers will get a much better viewing experience once they migrate – they’ll have clearer picture and sharper sound quality. They’ll also, for the first time, get access to the electronic programme guide (EPG) so they can see what is currently showing and what is up next."

"We’re committed to help our M-Net analogue customers to migrate in the next month or two. As we’ll be switching off this service at the end of March, it is important that customers act immediately," says MultiChoice.