BREAKING. eBotswana set to appear in court on Thursday facing off against Sentech for allegedly failing to prevent piracy signals of the SABC channels.

Sentech's failure to stop widespread broadcast piracy in Southern Africa is negatively impacting on Botswana's television industry says e.tv, and the free-to-air broadcaster that is broadcasting in Botswana as eBotswana, is ready to tackle the South African signal distributor Sentech in the South Gauteng High Court tomorrow about this serious issue.

ALSO READ: eBotswana about taking Sentech to court: ''Piracy of the SABC signal is having a negative effect on the local television industry in Botswana.''
ALSO READ: eBotswana set to takesignal distributor Sentech to court as the issue of broadcast piracy in Southern Africa keeps growing.

eBotswana – a sister company to e.tv – is in court tomorrow (Thursday 28 July) arguing an application against the South African signal distributor Sentech for failing to take all reasonable steps necessary to prevent pirate viewing of the SABC channels in Botswana.

''At the moment, approximately 70% of the Botswana population is watching the pirated SABC channels, thereby seriously damaging growth in the local broadcast, production and advertising industries through the loss of potential advertising revenue,'' says eBotswana general manager Dave Coles.

eBotswana argues that Sentech has failed to maintain the encryption system on its Vivid decoder platform which has led to the piracy. ''Despite repeated requests from eBotswana since 2009 and Sentech's undertakings to South Africa's parliament that it would upgrade the encryption by March 2011, it has failed to do so,'' says e.tv.

''Due to Sentech's failure to maintain the encryption system, the SABC signal is currently being pirated off Sentech's Vivid Bouquet with the use of a satellite receiver commonly referred to as the Philiboa. We believe that the television industry not only in Botswana but the entire Southern Africa region will benefit greatly if the piracy is stopped,'' says Dave Coles.

e.tv Botswana on taking Sentech to court: ''Piracy of the SABC signal is having a negative effect on the local television industry in Botswana.''

e.tv Botswana that is taking South Africa's television signal distributor Sentech to court as well as the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa) about the continued piracy of the SABC's TV signals in Botswana says it's resorting to legal action after ''our pleas have fallen on deaf ears''.

Sentech is set to oppose the urgent interdict e.tv Botswana is bringing to the Johannesburg High Court to have Sentech take measures to curb the continued availability of the SABC's signal in Botswana where viewers, using pirated decoders, can freely watch SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

ALSO READ: e.tv Botswana set to take Sentech to court as the issue of broadcast signal piracy in Southern Africa keeps growing.

The piracy of television broadcast signals within Africa is growing at an alarming rate. An influx of grey decoders, as well as decoders having their software altered and illegally modified, has given rise to a growing black market business in illegal television watching. Viewers buy modified decoders and can then watch free-to-air signals like South Africa's SABC TV channels that's not supposed to be watchable in other Southern African countries, as well as unscrambled pay TV channels originating from Europe and elsewhere that forms part of pay TV operators' subscription channel bouquets.

The signals of the SABC's TV channels is currently being pirated off of Sentech's Vivid satellite television bouquet in Botswana with the use of a satellite receiver referred to as the Philiboa.

''The SABC is not licensed to broadcast in Botswana. Despite repeated requests to the SABC's signal distributor Sentech to reslive the problem, our pleas have fallen on deaf ears,'' says eBotswana's general manager Dave Coles. ''It is for this reason that we have now taken the matter to the courts.''

In a press statement eBotswana says ''the continued piracy of the SABC signal is having a negative effect on the local television industry as a whole in Botswana. Advertisers wishing to target the Botswana market are not buying airtime on Botswana television channels as their commercials are being viewed on the SABC channels across Botswana. This has a severe impact on the viability of television channels in Botswana which depend on advertising income for their survival. This, in turn, affects the ability of these television channels to spend money on Botswana local content which is relevant to the Botswana population.''

eBotswana, talking about the interdict, says the piracy problem can be solved ''speedily by Sentech ensuring that the SABC signals are adequately encrypted. The interdict is aimed at insuring Botswana has a vibrant and strong television industry.''

e.tv Botswana set to take South Africa's Sentech to court as the issue of broadcast signal piracy in Southern Africa keeps growing.

e.tv in Botswana is taking the South African signal distributor Sentech to court late next month or early in August when Sentech, as well as the SABC and the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (Icasa) who are also listed as the 2nd and 3rd respondents in the case, will have to answer about what is being done to prevent the illegal broadcasting of TV channel signals in Southern Africa.

ALSO READ: e.tv on taking Sentech to court: ''Piracy of the SABC signal is having a negative effect on the local television industry in Botswana''.

Business Report was first with a story that e.tv Botswana is asking the South Gauteng High Court for an interdict to force Sentech to change its signal encryption system. Sentech's system has been circumvented half a decade ago already by the pirate broadcasting industry in Southern Africa. These signal pirates bypassed the conditional access (CA) software in decoders to get an unscrambled Sentech signal in other countries through illegal software modifications in these decoders, delivering free South African TV channels to viewers in countries who shouldn't be getting access to these channels even if they wanted to pay for it.

Through these black market decoders - a massive and lucrative market catering to TV starved consumers fed-up with their own badly-run and programmed local channels  - viewers get free out-of-country TV channels for free for paying as little as paying a once-off R200 per box. In this way viewers in Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Angola, Mozambique and Malawi manage to get access, for free, to the TV channels of SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 that originate from South Africa.

General broadcast signal piracy means that channels such as e.tv in Botswana, as well as every single other localised broadcaster in other Southern African countries are basically ''competing'' with illegally, yet freely available TV channels. Viewers love South African television fare and what essentially happens is that they get to see programming before it's possibly and properly licensed or shown on terrestrial channels in these countries. When a channel like e.tv Botswana then acquires and broadcast a show, it could be that viewers have already seen it illegally, resulting in lower viewership.