As the gazetted date of December 31 draws closer for the years-delayed switch-off of the analogue broadcasting signal, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) warns of the challenges ahead that could potentially delay the programme further.

Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Solly Malatsi on Tuesday indicated “some serious challenges” in meeting the deadline amid significant financial constraints in possibly maintaining the dual-illumination period for much longer.

In 2006, South Africa acceded to the International Telecommunications Union regional agreement in Geneva that determined that Region 1 countries, which include South Africa, were required to migrate from analogue television to digital television by June 17, 2015.

Initially, South Africa aimed to complete the migration process in 2011, but the programme suffered serious setbacks during the technology negotiation processes, with every deadline set having been missed since.

Last year, South Africa’s transition from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television analogue frequencies gained some traction following the adoption of a two-step approach, which resulted in the successful switch-off of analogue services above the 694 MHz band on July 31, 2023.

The second step allowed for the temporary accommodation of some of the highly populous areas using the sub-694 MHz until December 2024.

Malatsi, providing an update on South Africa’s broadcast digital migration programme during a National Assembly briefing to the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies streamed on YouTube on Tuesday, explained the dilemma the department faces.

“In terms of the options that are on the table and in terms of the progress that has been done, it is very clear that there will be serious difficulties with proceeding with the [deadline] date, as there are hundreds of thousands of South Africans who are still dependent on analogue as their source of access to television services.”

By October 31, only 21 of the remaining 195 transmitters were switched off, leaving 174 transmitters still to be done by the end of the year, and only a cumulative 1.3-million government subsidised set-top box (STB) installations completed, with nearly 500 000 households still to receive installation by the end of the year, explained DCDT deputy director-general Tinyiko Ngobeni.

“This is a result of data integrity issues which had negatively impacted the rate of decoder installation towards achieving a minimum of the 90% threshold needed to secure authorisation from broadcasters.”

In addition, despite wide-ranging consumer awareness campaigns, there has been no significant increase in the number of people registering for the STBs.

Between August 2023 and October 2024, 42 563 additional registrations were recorded through the manual and online platforms, leading to a total of 1.77-million qualifying households recorded since inception of the broadcasting digital migration in September 2015.

Malatsi commented that it would be reasonable to extend the deadline; however, there is no funding or financial provision for continued dual-illumination – keeping both analogue and digital frequencies on will place severe financial strain on signal distributor Sentech.

According to Ngobeni, with no funding allocated for the 2024/25 financial year, the department and the Universal Service and Access Agency of South Africa requested National Treasury to approve a reprioritisation of R140-million from the Universal Service and Access Fund to cover the dual illumination shortfall.

Dual illumination will cost R35-million for every three-month extension, or R140-million for a year.

Since 2014, government has spent R1.23-billion for dual-illumination.

Further, the analogue network is obsolete, with equipment no longer being manufactured and not supported, which poses a challenges if the use of the legacy network is prolonged.

“In simple terms, it comes down to those two choices, the choices that confront us now would be, if we proceed with the analogue switch-off we are going to leave hundreds of thousands of members of the public behind. That, on its own, has several implications and consequences, even for the broadcasters.

“The reasonable thing to proceed will be an extension of the date. Then we will need to get into a conversation about securing the funding for dual-illumination, and then [determine] how long the extension would be, so that we do not come back again at a later stage, to have the same conversation about whether there is a need to relook the deadline or not, and this is basically what is going to confront us.”

With several stakeholders, including broadcasters, having expressed concerns about the looming deadline and the implications, the DCDT is continuing its engagements and is “getting closer” to finalising the consultative process about how to best proceed with the deadline.