Solly Malatsi announces extension of analogue switch-off [VIDEO]

The deadline for South Africa’s analogue switch-off has been extended from 31 December 2024 to 31 March 2025.

Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi announced the extension on Thursday.

Watch William Bird reacting to the extension of the analogue switch-off deadline

The deadline for the analogue switch-off has been extended from 31 December 2024 to 31 March 2025. Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi announced the extended deadline on Thursday. Video: SABC #DigitalMigratiom #AnalogueSwitchOff #SollyMalatsi… pic.twitter.com/9vBQrzLmS4

— 𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚕 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕 ⚡️ (@FaizelPatel143) December 6, 2024

Extension

Malatsi said he secured Cabinet’s support to delay South Africa’s analogue television switch-off.

“This extension will ensure that as many indigent households as possible will enjoy their right to access broadcast services.

ALSO READ: SA’s digital migration: Extension needed for analogue switch-off, Parliament told

“We have communicated this decision to the broadcasters and relevant stakeholders … and commit to continue working together with them on this project. Their commitment to ensuring that the free-to-air households migrate is critical to the success of this programme,” said Malatsi.

Costly

Malatsi added the project has “dragged on for far too long”, costing the government R1.23 billion for dual illumination. He said “broadcasting in both analogue and digital is costly and cannot be sustained indefinitely – more so at a time when the fiscus is under extreme pressure”.

Malatsi said 467,000 households that registered for government-subsidised set-top boxes have yet to receive them.

This needs to be addressed, he said, without disclosing why the set-top boxes had not yet been distributed.

“Our immediate focus between now and the end of March 2025 is to aggressively accelerate the delivery and installation of set-top boxes to indigent households to ensure that as many households as possible are prepared for the switch-off,” Malatsi said.

‘Not surprising’

Media Monitoring Director William Bird said the postponement of the analogue switch-off is not surprising, but the fact that only a few set-top boxes have been installed since the Constitutional Court order in 2022 is startling.

“What we need to see now is a very clear target and the minister also explained that they are going to reveal what their plans are for accelerating installation. But we need to know of the people that have had these installed, are they still functioning?

“The government is really going to have to shift away from this idea that they don’t tell what is going on, to telling us in detail what’s going on so that the broadcasters and SABC in particular can prepare and make sure that they aren’t going to lose millions of viewers. Because to be clear if SABC were to lose those millions of viewers, SABC’s financial crisis would be even greater than it already is,” said Bird.

Significant threats

The digital migration project is 14 years beyond the original deadline of December 2010 set by former communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri during former president Thabo Mbeki’s administration.

It poses significant threats to the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and other free-to-air channels like e.tv, potentially disrupting their operations and viewership.

What is digital migration?

Households are required to register for STB installations — commonly referred to as decoders — as part of the migration to digital broadcasting.

The decoders can be either digital terrestrial television (DTT) or direct-to-home (DTH) devices.

The primary difference lies in their signal distribution methods: DTT uses land-based digital transmitters, while DTH relies on satellites to deliver digital broadcasts.

Furthermore, only 21 of South Africa’s 195 analogue television transmitters have been completely switched off as of 31 October.

Additional reporting by Molefe Seeletsa

ALSO READ: ‘No, you are not going to lose free-to-air TV in SA’ – Department