A major focus of the proposed Convergence Bill will be to increase local content and facilitate the use of all the country`s languages, says minister of communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
The move towards convergence will see a number of previously disparate services, such as voice, data and multimedia content, brought together, encouraging effective competition and fair and equal access to broadcasting, telecommunications and IT.
The minister addressed the Western Cape Broadcast and Language Summit in Somerset West today. She is due to conduct a parliamentary press briefing tomorrow, where she is expected to elaborate on other issues concerning her department.
In her speech this morning, Matsepe-Casaburri said a major task for her department and the country is to improve the broadcasting situation and to assess whether the broadcast system meets the needs of "all our people in terms of both language and content".
In January, Parliament signed into law a Broadcasting Amendment Act to establish regional language television services to focus on marginalised indigenous languages.
The minister said that in the past nine years, 94 community radio-broadcasting licences have been awarded along with 10 commercial licences. The Department of Communications` multimedia unit has given infrastructure support and programme production support to 42 community radio stations. About 50 000 minutes of programmes have been produced by this unit on topics such as children, women, disability, HIV/AIDS and crime.
Today`s summit is part of a Department of Communications` preparation for a National Broadcasting Summit to be held in the future.
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