South Africa’s Department of Communications (DoC) has announced it is set to publish the final Broadcasting Digital Migration (BDM) policy in the Government Gazette next week.
The management of DoC presented the country’s state of readiness to migrate from analogue to digital broadcasting to a Joint Portfolio Committee on Communication and Telecommunications and Postal Services in Parliament on Tuesday.
The new policy seeks to clarify the use a control system in Set Top Boxes (STBs) that will enable households to switch from analogue to digital broadcast signals.
Last week, Cabinet approved the Broadcast Digital Amendment Policy, which makes provision for the inclusion of a control system in STBs and endorsed commencement of the country’s digital migration.
The department’s Acting Director-General Donald Liphoko said: “Government has worked and will continue to work with all stakeholders in the Economic Cluster to ensure coordination of efforts and resources towards achieving a common objective”.
Liphoko attributed the delay in digital migration to disagreements about the use of the control system in STBs, which some free-to-air broadcasters had suggested it would negatively impact on their content.
DTT Programme Head Solly Mokoetle said progress has been made regarding STBs in the country.
“Government has assured Parliament that Cabinet’s endorsement of an inclusion of a control system aims to protect its multibillion rand investment in the STBs from use outside of South Africa and that broadcasters who seek conditional access related to the encryption of their broadcast content may do so at their own cost.
“Our responsibility is to protect the STBs [in which] government is investing. The issues beyond the box or the encryption of the signal are not our domain. Those who want to encrypt the signal or content so that they give rights to watch certain programmes can do that and they can make their investment in that area.”
