South Africa’s TV signal failure

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has called on Parliament to investigate the South African government’s handling of the analogue switch-off project, which its latest report notes has been troubled by persistent delays and irregular expenditure.

“It is our view that mismanagement, coupled with a lack of political will, has led to the wasteful expenditure of public funds on an incomplete and poorly executed migration process,” said advocate Stefanie Fick, executive director of Outa’s accountability division.

“It is Parliament’s duty to ensure that public funds are spent effectively and that the BDM process is concluded with a clear and measurable outcome.”

This follows nearly 14 years of South Africa failing to see out the switching off of analogue broadcasting frequencies to migrate to digital signals.

By doing so, additional spectrum would become available to increase the capacity of wireless telecom networks, including cellular operators, enabling them to offer better mobile data prices.

However, South Africa’s failure to completely switch off analogue broadcasting signals has also resulted in expenditures of R1.23 billion in just the past 10 years due to protracted dual illumination.

Dual illumination refers to using both analogue and digital broadcasting signals.

This is necessitated by South African households relying on analogue broadcasting technology to access TV services.

To assist with the migration, the government has been distributing set-top boxes (STB) that can intercept digital broadcasting signals to ensure these South Africans can still watch TV after an analogue switch-off.

South Africa has spent north of R10 billion procuring these STBs for households with monthly incomes less than R3,500.

However, many households are yet to receive STBs — a number that is highly debated.

This may be between 2.2 million and 4.5 million households, according to Outa.

eMedia argued that if analogue switch-off had occurred on its most recent deadline, 31 March, 13.9 million people would have been affected.

Similarly, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) argued that if the analogue broadcasting signal went dark, it would lose over a quarter of its viewer base.

Therefore, eMedia challenged the 31 March deadline, which resulted in the Pretoria High Court suspending the switch-off and interdicting communications minister Solly Malatsi from taking further steps to finalise it.

The court also interdicted state signal distributor Sentech from switching off analogue signals.

In his judgement, Judge Selby Baqwa said Malatsi had noted in his answering affidavit that “the whole public would suffer prejudice” and that, despite this, the full rollout of STBs would only be completed by the end of the year.

Therefore, Outa argued that Parliament must hold government departments accountable for the digital migration project and ensure that steps are taken against them for wasteful expenditure.

“Parliament must ensure government accountability and enforce consequence management,” Fick said.

“The public cannot continue to bear the cost of mismanagement and failure.”

Outa also said that the government should be mandated to distribute STBs to at least 80% of all indigent households and establish a nationwide public awareness campaign to educate citizens on migration.

The table below shows the deadlines missed since the digital migration project started in 2006.