This week, e.tv aired The Switch Off, a special feature investigating the repeated failures that have stalled South Africa’s digital migration. With the latest Analogue Switch Off (ASO) deadline set for 31 March 2025, this in-depth report comes at a crucial moment.
Produced by Karen Schoonbee and journalist Annika Larsen, the 26-minute segment traces the history of these setbacks, featuring insights from industry experts, civil society voices, and myself.
Thanks to special permission from e.tv, you can now watch the full segment here on my Substack.
Some thoughts about the current situation….
Failure is hard to accept. So is grief. Moving from denial to acceptance isn’t easy—but it’s necessary. If Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) were a business, it would have collapsed long ago.
Despite over R12 billion spent and more than a decade of effort, DTT has failed to meet its core goal: migrating 5 million households to digital TV.
In 2015 Government unambiguously promised to:
“Provide free STBs to more than 5 million poor television household owners. This replaces the partial subsidy of 70% as previously approved in 2008.”
Today, DTT remains South Africa’s smallest broadcast network, reaching just over 1 million households. Even worse, it’s the most expensive platform for broadcasters—costing significantly more than satellite, streaming, and even the outdated analogue system.
Government figures claim that 1.25 million households were equipped with DTT boxes by 2024, but there’s no reliable data on how many are actually in use.
There are currently more than 12 million households on satellite and still 4.5 million households on the analogue network. DTT is even further down the rung if you add streaming services to the mix. In 2025 at least 2.4 million households had access to fibre-to-the-home connectivity.
On any objective basis, taking into account the money spent and the abject results, the digital migration process has arguably been SA’s biggest tech failure since democracy.
I've previously written about digital migration highlighting the missed opportunities and perplexing decision-making that have hindered the process.
Now is the time for the government to acknowledge the failure of the DTT project, scrap it entirely, and transition the 4.5 million affected households to satellite. While this will undoubtedly be costly, the price of inaction will be even greater—threatening the viability of the SABC, e.tv, and community television broadcasters.
As I suggested in The Switch Off, serious consideration should also be given to zero-rating data for SABC News and other public television channels—a move that government and regulators must prioritise to ensure accessible and sustainable public service media.
e.tv included a disclaimer at the end of the segment, acknowledging its ongoing litigation with the government and noting that the Minister of Communications declined to comment.
Despite it being very well researched and factually based, this programme may be dismissed by some as ‘self serving’ given the broadcaster’s current litigation and the amount of time given to the chairman of eMedia Holdings, Johnny Copelyn.
However there is no doubt that the concerns expressed by e.tv are shared by SA’s public broadcaster and the community TV sector. In fact, SABC CEO, Nomsa Chabeli tells Larsen that the SABC views DTT as a “sunset technology” and points to satellite as the future. Soweto TV Channel head Mandla Ncinitwa is quoted in the programme as saying: “Trust me, once they switch off a lot of people will be confused”, adding that ten years on very people know what DTT is.
For those interested in this subject, I recommend you watch the full segment.
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