South Africa’s communications minister, Faith Muthambi has said in an official statement that the government has decided to abandon the digital migration project. The move, described by local press as “shocking”, has completely caught the broadcasting industry off guard, and they had been working to a mid-year analogue switch off. “Seeing that none of our […]
Spanish company Infraestructuras y Gestión 2002 has challenged the Administration’s digital dividend plan before the Supreme Court – the same Court that ruled on the closure of 9 DTT channels and has still to decide the future of another 8 DTT channels. Should the Court decide to overturn the awarding of the digital dividend, the […]
The period to complete Spain’s DTT migration has come to an end with the switch-off taking place overnight between March 30th and 31st. It is estimated that 98 per cent of buildings in Spain out of the total 1 million (13 million homes) to be adjusted have already completed the retuning of its aerials to […]
India’s Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) say that the supply and installation of digital converter boxes to consumers as part of the all-important Phase III digitisation programme is not going well. One report tells the MIB that they must “get their act together” if the December 31st 2015 complete conversion is to happen. The […]
South African opposition parliamentarians have described the nation’s adoption of digital TV as a “fiasco”. Marian Shinn, the opposition’s shadow Telecoms minister, has severely criticised South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma for failures in decision making, and which has resulted in a “legislative nightmare and confusing reporting lines”. “The unfolding fiasco that is engulfing the digital […]
Nigeria’s National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) has signed a National Common STB System agreement with Inview Technologies. Director General NBC, Emeka Mba, stated that the signing was a culmination of many months of consultation and a crucial step towards the DSO in Nigeria. Adding that the Commission through this agreement hopes to create the biggest TV […]
There may not yet be many digital set-top boxes in South Africa’s market but state-owned signal distributor Sentech says it has now activated 178 of its digital transmitters which can reach 84.2 per cent of the nation’s population (and geographically cover 58 per cent of the country). South Africa switched on its first digital DVB-T2 […]
Although South Africa’s Communications Minister Faith Muthambi had earlier intimated that the nation would switch off its analogue broadcasting system in June, the Department of Communications has issued a New Broadcasting Digital Migration policy which suggests this is not the case. The Department says it welcomes the Cabinet decision regarding the approval of the Broadcasting […]
South Africa’s Communications Ministry insists that it will switch off analogue TV in June. Earlier this week the South African cabinet approved the scheme to issue low-cost (and in some 5 million cases free) set-top boxes needed to receive the new digital TV signals. Communications Minister Faith Muthambi, at a press briefing, that the boxes […]
Stories have been circulating for some weeks that “up to 40 African nations” have been given exemptions from the June 17th absolute switch-over from analogue TV broadcasting to digital. ‘Not so” states the ITU bluntly, and warns that any nation which has not switched off its analogue TV by mid-June risks their international protection rights […]