South Africa’s preparations to broadcast the 2010 FIFA World Cup, to be hosted in this country, on High Definition (HD), came under the spotlight at the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation’s (CTO) “Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum 2007′ held in Sandton, Johannesburg in late January.
The country is still in the process of migrating from analogue to digital technologies with signal distributor Sentech having been allocated R205m over the next three years by government to implement the switchover. Digital migration is expected to boost IT and TV and radio production skills.
South Africa viewers wanting to watch the World Cup digitally will require set-top boxes that may cost in the region of R500. It was suggested at the Forum that government should introduce subsidies for set top boxes to empower access to the new digital services.
The benefits of these services could be affected by the fact there is currently no regulatory policy for digital broadcasting and low public awareness around what such services can offer. See further reports on the Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum in the March issue of Screen Africa.
