Still no end in sight to South Africa’s digital migration saga

The communications department has told parliament that no date has been set for South Africa’s analogue television switch-off, and that it is concerned communities may believe otherwise.

Director-general Nonkqubela Jordan-Dyani told the portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies on Friday that a date would be considered only after engagements with stakeholders had run their course.

A steering committee established by communications minister Solly Malatsi, made up of broadcasters and other interested parties, has now had its terms of reference finalised after delays, she said. She hoped that would lead to substantive discussion on the state of migration and the route to switch-off.

That is a notably more cautious posture than the department held a year ago, when it proposed to industry that a date be set once 75% of set-top box installations were complete – a threshold Media Monitoring Africa immediately disputed, noting it had put the figure at 90% or more in court.

The committee also heard a figure that will be contested. Content advisor Jacob Medupe, presenting a report on the SOS Coalition’s July summit on public interest broadcasting, said the summit had been told that almost 500 000 viewers remain dependent on analogue in the four provinces yet to be switched off.

That number sits well below estimates that have circulated through the dispute. The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse has put the affected range at between 2.2 million and 4.5 million households, and eMedia has argued that some 4.5 million households would still rely on analogue after switch-off because they cannot afford the hardware.

Which number is right has been the core of the fight from the beginning: in last year’s high court proceedings, counsel for Media Monitoring Africa and the SOS Coalition accused Malatsi of lowballing the estimate of how many people would lose television access.

The five provinces already switched off – the Free State, the Northern Cape, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga – are the smaller ones. Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and the Eastern Cape, which remain, account for roughly two-thirds of the population.

The project is 16 years past the December 2010 deadline set under Thabo Mbeki’s administration and 11 years past the date South Africa committed to at the International Telecommunication Union. It has now defeated a long line of ministers.

In March last year, the high court in Pretoria interdicted Malatsi and Sentech from switching off analogue on 31 March, with judge Selby Baqwa finding the minister had failed to consult industry before setting the date – the same failure for which the constitutional court ruled against Khumbudzo Ntshavheni in 2022. A second part of that case, seeking to have the decision declared unlawful, remains pending. Malatsi has since said he wants an out-of-court solution .

The stakes for the SABC are high. Medupe told the committee that premature switch-offs had already cost audiences and advertising revenue, helping worsen the broadcaster’s financial position.