Solly Malatsi sets new deadline for analogue switch-off

Communications minister Solly Malatsi

Communications minister Solly Malatsi said on Thursday that the deadline for analogue switch-off has been moved out once again – though this time by only another three months.

The broadcasting digital migration project, which is 14 years beyond the original deadline of December 2010 set by former communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri in President Thabo Mbeki’s administration, has proved an insurmountable task for a long list of communications ministers, all from the ANC.

Get breaking news from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Sign up here

Malatsi – the first Democratic Alliance politician to lead the ministry, now under the government of national unity – said in a statement that he has secured cabinet’s support for an extension to the deadline for analogue switch-off from 31 December 2024 to 31 March 2025. The December 2024 deadline had been set by his immediate predecessor, the ANC’s Mondli Gungubele, who now serves as deputy minister.

Our immediate focus … is to aggressively accelerate the delivery and installation of set-top boxes

“This extension will ensure that as many indigent households as possible will enjoy their right to access broadcast services,” Malatsi said in Thursday’s statement.

“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, who is clearly keen to avoid further litigation from commercial broadcasters that has bedevilled the process in the past.

He added that the project has “dragged on for far too long”, saying 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”.

Subsidised boxes

But he said 467 000 households that registered for government set-top boxes as part of a subsidy programme have not yet received them, and this needs to be addressed. He did not say why they 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.

William Bird, executive director at Media Monitoring Africa, warned in June that any migration from analogue to digital television that left a portion of the population behind would lead to an existential crisis for the SABC.

Read: SABC funding crisis as South Africans spurn TV licences

“It is a catastrophic risk for the SABC… To cut its audience in this context is basically taking away its only source of revenue. This will have consequences on the thousands of jobs at the SABC, and we are facing a possible extinction event for the public broadcaster,” said Bird. — (c) 2024 NewsCentral Media