Editors Comments

The Ministerial checklist

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:13

Those attending South African Minister of Communications Dina Pule’s first engagement with the media (held on 24 January in Pretoria) since her appointment three months ago might have expected to hear the announcement of the digital terrestrial television launch date. While the Minister had definite progress to report in the country’s protracted digital migration project, the launch date itself was absent from her speech. When pressed by a question from the floor Ms Pule said that it would likely be in the third quarter of the year.

DTT is certainly not the only thing on the Minister’s overflowing plate. Her portfolio includes the ICT sector, broadband, the post office, USAASA, cyber security and the Department of Communications (DoC) itself. It’s encouraging to hear that she is committed to shaping up what she refers to as ‘Team DoC’ in terms of technological know-how. A technically adept Team DoC will be equipped to make informed decisions regarding the growth of the industries in its purview.

But back to the forthcoming DTT. Come to think of it, for nigh on six years it’s been a case of ‘but back to the forthcoming DTT’. I’m reminded of a now ex SABC staffer, who after attending an industry workshop on DTT in October last year commented, “Do you think in 10 years time we’ll still be talking about the country’s forthcoming migration from analogue to digital?”

Hopefully not judging by the milestones the Minister reported (albeit some were prefaced by “it is expected that” and “we anticipate”). What is definite is next month’s gazetting of the amendments to the 2008 Broadcasting Digital Migration Policy.

The Minister said the DTT policy will fast-track the finalisation of the DTT Regulations by regulator ICASA. Hopefully not too fast to do a good job though. Following this ICASA is expected to license new DTT services, something that will surely expand the broadcasting industry.

Good news is that Set-Top-Box Manufacturing Sector Development Strategy and the Scheme for Ownership Support Rollout Framework are finalised and are scheduled to be presented to Cabinet next month. The question is how long will cabinet deliberate over them?

State-owned parastatal signal distributor Sentech is expected by March this year to ensure that the digital signal (which we won’t even have by then) will cover more than 60% of the population.

It’s surprising to hear that the Minister intends rolling out the DTT education and awareness campaign “in a phased manner until all provinces are covered”. You’d think that South Africa’s mostly DTT-clueless public should all be informed at the same time on the issues around digital migration.

The finalisation of the national DTT Standard for South Africa by the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS) is expected to be finalised and gazetted in February 2012. Holding thumbs on this score!

Moving on to other broadcasting matters the Minister said: “I will soon announce the Review Panel whose brief is to conduct a comprehensive broadcasting policy landscape and make recommendations.” Do I hear a collective sigh of relief from the industry?

Also encouraging is that the SABC remains high on the Minister’s list of priorities. She noted that a whole batch of acronym-heavy positions - CTO, COO and CFO - would be filled as a matter of urgency. Excellent news but it’s a pity that the government and not the public and the industry get to appoint / approve the candidates.

For an in-depth report of what the Minister had to say see the February issue of the Screen Africa print magazine.

Joanna Sterkowicz

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