Cape Town - Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has issued a final deadline of March 31 next year for TV analogue migration following a June 28 order by the Constitutional Court.
Minister Ntshaveni said the matter was urgent and that the government had issued a Gazette notice inviting industry, affected parties and members of the public to make substantive submissions by January 27.
“Analogue switch-off must be concluded without further delay in order to enable the telecommunication network operators to de-congest the networks with the deployment of 4G and 5G networks.”
She said the quality of connectivity was degrading across the country and some areas had completely lost network coverage.
Pushing for a speedy conclusion of digital migration, Ntshaveni said the ministry had already received reports of cross-interference between Broadcasting and International Mobile Telecommunications services – something they had been trying to avoid.
She said that as of November 30, the ministry had 185 382 outstanding installations to complete, taking into account all set top box (STB) registrations up to September 30.
“We have been installing STBs at an average of 49 417 installations per month, which implies that we require just over three months to complete installations at the current run rate.”
However, civil society activists from the #SaveFreeTV campaign have signalled their unhappiness with the analogue migration.
One of the campaign’s spokespersons, Hassen Lorgat, of the People’s Media Consortium, said in a statement that rushing to migrate at all costs would effectively leave the poor vulnerable.
Lorgat said Minister Ntshaveni’s statement on December 9, was a “tick box” response to the requirements in the June 28 order by the Constitutional Court on the issue.
He said Ntshaveni had not “embraced the substance of the decisions of the Constitutional Court” on participatory democracy and genuine consultation.
“It would appear that the minister and the department are allergic to real and sustained consultation and negotiation with civil society groups.”
Free-to-air TV station Cape Town TV (CTV) manager Karen Thorne said they would be making representations as requested by the minister by the end of January.
However, Thorne said: “What we have been asking for all along is an engagement with the minister and there we would hope that she would engage with all the free-to-air broadcasters, together, as opposed to just taking submissions.”
Thorne said she didn’t believe that making a submission to the minister fits the definition of a consultation.
“There has to be a two-way process. She has to hear us and there has to be some sort of deliberation. Never once have we been invited to any of the ministers’ steering committee meetings.”
Thorne said CTV would continue working with the SOS coalition, which is a member-based public broadcasting network that campaigns for democratic media and broadcasting, as well as the #SaveFreeTV campaign and other civil society organisations.