Advanced Television

SABC

SABC: “Digital is coming”

South Africa’s SABC public broadcaster is using public service announcements on its channels that its analogue broadcast are coming to an end and being replaced by digital TV signals. Scrolling messages are being shown on all of the SABC channels. The text reads: “Important notice: If you see this message, go to your nearest Post […]

May 14, 2021By Chris Forrester

South Africa: Extreme E signs with SABC

Electric SUV racing series, Extreme E, has announced that South Africa’s SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) will televise all five of this year’s X Prix live on its linear channels, SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and SABC Sport Channel – which began with the debut X Prix which took place in the deserts of Saudi Arabia last […]

April 9, 2021

SABC lays off 21% of staff

Years of losses have forced a major restructuring on financially troubled South Africa Broadcasting (SABC). The broadcaster says that it has now laid off 621 staff, some 21 per cent of its workforce in order to make SABC “fit for purpose” and to avoid the need for more public handouts. “The reduction of employee costs […]

April 1, 2021By Chris Forrester

SABC reaches carriage deal with Openview

South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC has struck a carriage deal with commercial operator eMedia which operates the Openview free-to-air satellite service. The agreement will see SABC supply six TV channels to Openview. The channels include its mainstream SABC 1, 2 and 3 transmissions as well as three new channels. One of the new channels will […]

March 26, 2021By Chris Forrester

SABC seeks household tax for TV fee

South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, wants the government to create a “household tax” on every home to fund its activities. “The current TV licence fee system should be scrapped and replaced with a device-independent, tech-neutral household levy for public broadcasting, which would levy all households, with exemption for the indigent and discounts for pensioners,” said […]

March 2, 2021By Chris Forrester

South Africa DSO further delayed

South Africa is some ten years late in completing its digital switchover (DSO) from analogue TV. Now it seems the conversion will take even longer. Local reports say that the nation’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, and the country’s communications Minister, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, have now agreed to a new target date of March 2023 to wrap up […]

December 10, 2020By Chris Forrester

SABC reverses staff cuts

Financially stretched South Africa Broadcasting (SABC) has cancelled plans to reduce its significantly over-staffed payroll by 400 jobs. A decision has been postponed until 2021, although extra pressures from government and unions might postpone any lay-offs indefinitely. “The SABC board has extended the suspension of the section 189 process to the end of December 2020 […]

November 25, 2020By Chris Forrester

SABC slashes workforce

South Africa’s public broadcaster SABC is to cut 400 jobs in its latest attempt to curb expenses. While the 400 lost jobs will worry the broadcaster’s powerful unions, it is less than the 600 talked about earlier this year. Additionally, another 97 jobs will be outsourced. An SABC statement said: “The SABC is fully cognisant […]

November 13, 2020By Chris Forrester

SABC wants to go ahead on OTT

South Africa’s public broadcaster, SABC, is going ahead with plans to stream content to citizens. On October 30th it issued a partial ‘Request for Information’ (RFI) to some key potential suppliers for the sort of technical support that would be needed ahead of a launch of an OTT service to rival Netflix and Showmax. SABC […]

November 3, 2020By Chris Forrester

SABC could see full blown strike

Financially troubled South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) in an attempt to cut costs has talked of reducing its staff numbers by about 600. The news saw staff and labour unions talk of a “full blown strike” at the national broadcaster. A letter sent to all members of staff on October 19th and quoted in the […]

October 20, 2020By Chris Forrester