Pretoria – Communications Minister Faith Muthambi says the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is making headway in building modern digital infrastructure in preparation for Digital Terrestrial Television.
“… In the [2014/15 financial year], the SABC has improved its investment in systems and infrastructure that will be used to broadcast on the DTT platform.
“The public broadcaster upgraded the DTT head-end to enable high definition (HD). The SABC continued to work with key stakeholders and industry bodies to ensure a successful DTT changeover,” she said.
The country is in the process of migrating from analogue to digital broadcasting, which will free up a lot of frequency spectrum to allow for more broadcasting services to be added. In turn, the spectrum can be used for new services like mobile, wireless broadband and potentially more TV services and channel.
A fortnight ago, Minister Muthambi announced that poor TV-owning households in the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) communities of Keimoes and Kai Garib in the Northern Cape will be the first to experience DTT in the country.
“The SKA area in the Northern Cape was identified as the place where DTT will start. We need to conclude the migration from analogue to digital in this province before 1 January 2016.
“This is the first registration process for TV-owning households since the DTT policy was gazetted by Parliament on 18 March 2015. Households in the districts that form part of the SKA radio telescope must visit their local post office to apply for a subsidised Set Top Box (STB),” she said.
Growing radio audiences
Minister Muthambi said the public broadcaster performed very well in growing and meeting its audience share targets on radio.
“For the period under review, the SABC radio stations were reaching a massive 27.9 million listeners per week and this translated to 69.5% radio audience share. Constant review of stations’ performance, implementation of research findings and continuous in-house training ensured that targets were achieved,” she said.
The SABC achieved a 49.3% television audience share against a 51% target for the 2014/15 financial year. Schedule changes implemented on SABC 2 as well as the replacement of long-running soapie Generations on SABC1 lowered the audience numbers.
The SABC has, however, implemented corrective measures to recover and bring its audience share closer to the target.
The SABC News Channel’s audience share continued to grow with a daily average audience of 785 000 viewers during the period under review. It is the most watched news channel on the DStv bouquet.
Catering for all tastes
Minister Muthambi said delivering high-quality programming and content that spans a range of genres across multiple platforms was the primary focus of the SABC during the 2014/15 financial year.
In the SABC’s strategy to increase its representation of all South African cultures and stories in its programming, the corporation committed to providing programming and/or programming inserts from all nine provinces.
The Minister said the SABC was also able to successfully deliver on this ambitious strategy during the 2014/15 financial year.
As the public broadcaster, the SABC is required to provide programming for all South African citizens.
Apart from the standard programmes where sign language is provided, the SABC extended sign language to three programmes. From 1 April 2014, all new drama productions - except for children’s programmes - were subtitled, ensuring greater accessibility for persons with disabilities.
Not only is the SABC’s focus on providing greater access to programming for viewers with disabilities, but also on creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities.
During the period under review, the SABC procured content from seven companies controlled or owned by people with disabilities. - SAnews.gov.za
