Television in South Africa

Opposition leader K. Ueckermann was the first politician to propose a television service for the SABC, submitting a question to the Minister of Posts and Telegraphs, J. F. Naudé, on 6 April 1951.

[4] The first proposal to introduce television in South Africa was made by The Rank Organisation in 1953, but it was rejected by the National Party government.

[7] By the late 1950s, United Party member B. Wilson had argued that the idea of introducing television was no longer an "astronomical" expense.

[9] Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd compared television to atomic bombs and poison gas, stating, "They are modern things, but that does not mean they are desirable.

"[10] Dr. Albert Hertzog, the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at the time, argued that "the effect of wrong pictures on children, the less developed, and other races can be destructive.

"[5] Declaring that television would come to South Africa "over [his] dead body,"[11] Hertzog denounced it as "only a miniature bioscope which is being carried into the house and over which parents have no control.

"[12] He also claimed that "South Africa would have to import films showing race mixing, and advertising would make Africans dissatisfied with their lot.

These films featured news, interviews, and documentary segments and were viewed by millions of people, with production costs amounting to thousands of rands.

"[15] When Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon in 1969, South Africa was one of the few countries unable to watch the event live.

"[16] In response to public demand, the government arranged limited viewings of the landing, allowing people to watch recorded footage for 15 minutes.

[6] In addition, neighbouring Southern Rhodesia had launched its own television service in 1960, becoming the first country in Africa south of the equator to do so.

[21] Commenting on Rhodesia's experience with television, Ivor Benson, who served as Director of the Government Information Department under Ian Smith, remarked that the South African government "had been wise to stand firm against a great deal of well-organised pressure and to insist on waiting until some means might be found of separating television from some of the evils which have attended it in other countries.

[24] In 1971, the government appointed a "Commission of Inquiry into Matters Relating to Television," headed by Piet Meyer, chairman of the Afrikaner Broederbond and later of the SABC.

"[26] The commission also argued that people in South Africa would eventually be able to receive foreign television broadcasts via satellite, thereby bypassing government censorship.

[27] Additionally, it would be inconceivable for the Publications Control Board to censor each video cassette that entered the country once they became available in large quantities.

[33] (Tanzania itself did not establish a television service until the early 1990s, similarly concerned about the expense and perceived threat to cultural norms.

)[34] The government, advised by SABC technicians, took the view that colour television would have to be available to avoid a costly migration from black-and-white broadcasting technology.

[70] Since the end of apartheid, some South African-produced programmes have been shown internationally, such as SABC 3's sci-fi/drama series Charlie Jade, a co-production between the Imaginarium and Canada's CHUM.

[71] M-Net's soap opera Egoli: Place of Gold was shown in 43 African countries and was even exported to Venezuela, where it was dubbed in Spanish.

[74] This was followed by a further agreement with Sky News, signed on 21 September 1993, with the SABC channels gaining access to a live feed for eleven to twelve hours a day from 3 October.

Two years later, the SABC launched its ill-fated satellite channels, AstraPlus and AstraSport, which were intended to catapult the corporation into the Pay TV market, called AstraSat.

CNBC Africa competes with Summit, a business television station owned by media group Avusa, which broadcasts only during evening prime time.

Both stations are available only on the MultiChoice direct-to-home platform, although the inclusion of CNBC Africa in the offerings of new satellite players seems a near certainty.

An important conference held in the Netherlands in 1991 saw a broad range of NGOs and community groups resolve that the full diversity of the country should be expressed in its broadcasting.

It was only after the national broadcasting regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), promulgated its position paper on community television in 2004 that longer-term licences, of up to one year, were introduced.

[90] Issues surrounding frequency availability are complicated by the migration to digital broadcasting, which led ICASA to declare a moratorium on considering new community TV licence applications in March 2010.

In 2014, these channels collectively reached an audience of around 12 million viewers,[92] and all are carried both terrestrially on local analogue frequencies as well as nationally on pay-TV platforms, principally DStv.

[93] The policy governs the switchover from analogue to digital transmission and states that the department will provide funding to the national signal distributor, Sentech, to begin the migration process according to the published timetable.

[95][96][97][98] South African-based MultiChoice's DStv is the main digital satellite television provider in Sub-Saharan Africa, broadcasting principally in English, but also in Portuguese, Hindi, German, and Afrikaans.

[99] It offers a number of South African and international television channels and broadcasts principally in English, but also in Hindi, Portuguese, and Afrikaans.