The three-day Digital Broadcasting Switchover Forum 2009 (DBSF09) got underway on 3 February at the Sandton Sun in Johannesburg at a time when South Africa is conducting trials for digital terrestrial television (DTT).
Organised by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Organisation (CTO), this fourth edition of the DBSF09 highlighted common problems experienced by African broadcasters on the route to digital migration.
As chairperson of SADIBA (Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association) noted, Africa is not alone in finding the switchover from analogue broadcasting to digital challenging. “The American senate is currently considering delaying the deadline for the analogue switch-off, which was supposed to happen on 17 February this year. Whereas the bulk of Americans rely on cable and satellite, Africa is very dependent on terrestrial broadcasting. The South African DTT trials are presently taking place in Johannesburg, Pretoria and Durban, with pay-TV broadcaster M-Net also conducting a trial in Cape Town.”
Lara Kantor, Chairperson of the Digital Dzonga (the Digital Migration Office created by the Department of Communications to ensure the smooth implementation of DTT), expressed the opinion that the commercial launch of DTT might well happen at the end of 2009, and not in the middle of the year as predicted last year by Parliament.
On the first day of the DBSF09, representatives of from Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Botswana, Mauritius and South Africa presented updates on the progress of digital migration in their countries. Mauritius has already successfully implemented DTT, using set top boxes manufactured in China.
See in-depth coverage of the DBSF09 in March issue of Screen Africa.
