South Africa to Introduce Digital Television By 2011

The South African cabinet has approved a digital migration policy that would result in local television migrating from analogue to digital by the end of 2011. Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Cassaburi said Friday the migration policy will see an increase in the number of free-to-air channels with operators like South African Broadcasting Television and e-Television being able to add new programs and services to their existing platforms. It would also help broadcasters provide programs in all official languages.

Since digital television allows for interactivity, the migration could also enable citizens to access certain government services by filling-in the necessary forms via their TV-sets, she said.

To ensure this migration, households with analogue TV sets would have to acquire new Set Top Boxes (STBs) that would allow for the conversion of the digital signal to analogue sets.

Government has committed to providing subsidized STBs to the country’s poorest five million households. The subsidy could be as high as 70 percent of the actual price of each device.

The minister said South Africa would operate on both analogue and digital until 2011 and that analogue would then be phased out.

“During migration there has to be two signals, digital and analogue, running together. So we have to pay twice the price. We decided it will be cheaper for us to make the process (of migration) shorter,” she said.

Source African Press Agency

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