Cabinet has green-lighted the long-awaited digital migration policy and announced it will subsidise the bulk of the cost of set-top boxes (STBs) for five million people, to the tune of R2.45 billion.
The boxes are expected to cost between R400 and R700, with 5.6 million expected to be produced a year by seven or eight companies.
Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri made the announcement this morning at a post-Cabinet media briefing.
"The [digital migration] policy ushers [in] a new era in the history of [the] broadcasting industry," she said.
Digital migration refers to the switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting. SA has set itself a deadline of November 2011 to achieve this. Government will have a three-year dual-illumination period within which citizens will be able to watch digital television on analogue TV sets through the use of STBs.
SA has an estimated total of 11 million households, with 7.3 million having TV sets. Government says digital terrestrial television is expected to inject about R4 billion into SA's economy.
It was revealed this morning that Cabinet has approved the technical specifications for STBs. It also decided that government would provide ownership support, covering up to 70% of STB retail costs, to five million of the poorest TV-owning households.
"These households will have to raise the other 30% on their own [and] this support will be based on the anti-poverty strategy and its conditionalities," said Matsepe-Casaburri. "Funding for this support could be sourced from Universal Service and Access Fund."
She said the Department of Communications (DOC), together with National Treasury and other departments, would still have to decide on the qualifying criteria for the subsidies. Meanwhile, the technical requirements for the boxes have been sent to the South African Bureau of Standards.
Local boon
Matsepe-Casaburri said, in order to help boost the development of the local electronics manufacturing sector, STBs will be manufactured locally, in high volumes, by seven to eight companies, only four of which will be established players. The remainder will be new entities.
"The South African STB manufacturing sector has the potential to manufacture up to 5.6 million STBs per annum, when running at full capacity.
"This creates an opportunity to build a globally competitive export sector, which is an objective of the Industrial Policy Action Plan. It will spur job creation, resulting from the total digital migration value chain."
Earlier this year, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications raised concern over the slow process of preparing for the switchover, saying the necessary sense of urgency seemed to be lacking.
However, the minister said the delay was due to consultations with potential manufacturers about the specifications, as well as between the DOC and the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA).
"We don't want to have any differences between ourselves and ICASA," said Matsepe-Casaburri.
She did not say when the first working-model for the STBs would be available, even though the digital migration has to start in November.
The minister also did not go into detail regarding the issue of conditional access, which relates to the remote switching off of an STB by a broadcaster if, for example, the licence fee has not been paid. However, she did express concern about this issue in her budget speech earlier this year.
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