South Africa’s analogue TV switch-off deadline has been moved forward to 31 July 2024, hopefully hastening the finalisation of the twenty-year project.
Listening to government officials, you might hear talk of a June 2019 deadline. Or perhaps the 17 June 2015 deadline set by the International Telecommunications Union. In 2001, the late communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri appointed a Digital Broadcasting Advisory Board. The last major task that remained before South Africa’s analogue switch-off was producing and distributing decoder-like devices called set-top boxes .
Everything seemed back on track, but for one major red flag — government’s dithering over standards had given it an excuse to extend the analogue switch-off deadline from November 2011 to December 2013. The contract allowed MultiChoice to suspend its channel carriage agreement with the SABC if it broadcast encrypted channels on digital terrestrial television platforms.
Crucially, the auction included a substantial chunk of digital dividend spectrum, and Ntshavheni worked to ensure the digital TV migration was done before the spectrum went on sale.However, the operators said they would not pay for the digital dividend spectrum until broadcasters had vacated the auctioned bands.
Gungubele’s administration came up with a compromise. It switched off all analogue TV services above 694 MHz, releasing the auctioned spectrum while allowing TV broadcasters to use frequencies below that for the time being.