South Africans can expect more digital television channels when the country finally starts its long-awaited move off analogue.
This comes as the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) this week published regulations around promoting competition and diversity in digital television. The gazette reveals that - for the first time - there will be three multiplexes instead of the initially-planned two.
As South Africa is migrating to digital television using the updated European standard - DVB-T2 - each multiplex provides space for around 12 television channels, depending on whether these are offered in standard or high-definition.
Currently, only one station is being broadcast in the same amount of space. The ability to squeeze more offerings in is thanks to digital being more efficient, and not requiring any spill-over space, as is the case with analogue. Digital allows channels to be stacked directly next to each other.
Ready to migrate
In December 2012, ICASA published regulations giving the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as much as 85% of the first multiplex, while multiplex two was split between etv (50%) and M-Net (40), with the balance going to broadcasters with temporary licences.
This week, however, ICASA said there would be a third multiplex, which gives 45% of the space to one or more pay TV commercial broadcasters, with the balance going to commercial free-to-air broadcasters.
ICASA spokesman Paseka Maleka noted the latest regulations allocate more space, and the authority is "ready for migration". However, exactly when the long-awaited turn-on will happen has yet to be made clear.
Digital television now seems to be a project being run by both the Department of Communications (DOC), and the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), a situation that arose after president Jacob Zuma's puzzling split of the former DOC into two in May.
Both ministers - Siyabonga Cwele (DTPS) and Faith Muthambi (DOC) - have vowed to take digital television forward. However, the final broadcast digital migration policy, meant to have been gazetted at the end of last month, is apparently still with Cabinet awaiting finalisation, after Cwele submitted it to that body.
A switch-on date for digital television was set to be announced in October, a mere nine months before the International Telecommunication's Union's mid-2015 deadline, by which time all those migrating are meant to have turned off analogue.
The delays have pushed back any early benefit of the so-called digital dividend, which will free up spectrum that operators want in order to roll-out long-term evolution. The DTPS did not respond to a request for comment.
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