South Africa has been nominated as a runner-up in a London awards ceremony for its digital migration plan. However, it submitted a digital migration policy and not a plan as such.
According to a Department of Communications (DOC) statement today: “... government's efforts in driving the migration from analogue to digital television was for the first time acknowledged in London on Thursday, 25 February 2009, during the inaugural Informa Digital Switchover awards.”
Informa is a British-based events and publishing company that specialises in holding conferences on telecommunications and other ICT-type industries around the world. Some of these conferences culminate in an awards ceremony as a mark of recognition for various efforts by companies or organisations.
At the London awards, following Informa's conference on digital TV migration, SA was recognised as a runner up in the category of “Best Digital Switchover Plan”, with Sweden, while Finland took the line honours.
The DOC statement says communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri congratulated the Digital Dzonga, a body she established to oversee and monitor the implementation of broadcasting digital migration in SA.
Policy or plan?
However, the DOC statement initially caused some confusion as it implied an actual plan existed. On inquiry, it turns out the recognition was for the policy that was published in the Government Gazette in September: “The Broadcasting Digital Migration Policy”.
This five-page document states government's overall objectives with regard to digital migration. These objectives include multiple channels prioritising parliamentary services, education, health, women and youth, the provision of e-government services, and manufacturing for set-top boxes - the units needed to convert digital signals for display on analogue TV sets.
DOC spokesperson Joe Mkahfola says: “The award was in recognition of its detail.”
Aynon Doyle, MIH regulatory affairs manager, says: “I am not aware of a 'Digital Switchover Plan', as a formal programme of action can only really be generated once ICASA [the communications regulator] has completed its work on the digital terrestrial TV regulations and the terrestrial broadcast frequency plan. This is why digital broadcasts and transmitter roll-out is confined to trial licences at this point in time.”
Although Matsepe-Casaburri and her former director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole assured Parliament's communications committee several times that a digital migration plan would be forthcoming, it never appeared.
As good as it gets
The closest document to an actual plan is a report by the Digital Migration Working Group, a body that comprised mainly broadcasters, which was sent to Matsepe-Casaburri in 2006. However, this document was never formerly adopted as a plan.
“It is industry which should be getting a pat on the back, and not government,” says Dene Smuts, communications spokesperson for the Democratic Alliance. “Although dates were mentioned in the previous president's state-of-the-nation address, these milestones are not achievable as various things still have to be ironed out.”
These issues include the finalisation of the set-top box specifications by the SA Bureau of Standards, a frequency allocation plan by ICASA, a set-top box manufacturing strategy and finding the funding for the rolling out of transmitters by national signal distributor Sentech.
SA entered its three-year switchover from analogue to the digital broadcasting system in November, and is scheduled to complete the process in November 2011.
At the Informa awards, the South African Broadcasting Corporation was short-listed for the "Best Contribution by a Broadcaster to Digital Switchover".
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