SABC has ‘big plans’ to migrate from analogue to digital

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) has “big plans” to “as soon as possible” migrate from analogue to digital.

This was revealed on Friday during the public broadcaster’s virtual launch of its editorial policies.

During a question and answer session, the SABC’s Micheal Markovitz said the broadcaster’s board and management have made it clear in its presentation of its turn around strategy and operating model that the corporation “looks at its future in a completely multiplatform way”, with its programming made available on all platforms.

Markovitz said the SABC was now looking at over the top streaming services.

“We’re on DTT [digital terrestrial television], we’re on DTH, we are still on analogue and we have got some big plans to move off the analogue as soon as possible, with universal access at mind,” he said.

Markovits said the public broadcaster was at the moment the most accessed broadcaster in the country and second most accessed online news source.

“So we are still doing pretty well on the universal access side and we will continue to strive to do that on a multi-platform basis going forward,” he said.

Meanwhile, the commission of inquiry into state capture heard last year that a lack of human and financial resources was the main challenge in the country’s migration from an analogue TV system to DTT.

The commission heard at the time that if resources were made available, the migration would be completed in a period of two years.

The commission heard that the analogue platform was more costly in that it uses more bandwidth and carries fewer channels, while its digital counterpart uses less bandwidth and offers more channels, which would be beneficial to both viewers and broadcasters.

READ MORE: Zondo commission hears why SA is lagging so far behind with digital TV

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