The Portfolio Committee on Communications has commended the SABC and Sentech for ensuring that as many South Africans as possible have access to the public broadcaster.
The Committee said this during the SABC Board interviews in Johannesburg today. The Committee learnt from the interim SABC board Chairperson, Ms Zandile Tshabalala that the public broadcaster and Sentech were planning to launch the Direct-To-Home Satellite (DTH-S) platform by the end of next month (September).
Committee Chairperson, Mr Sikhumbuzo Kholwane said proper implementation of the programme would help in realising Sentech and the SABC’s shared common public service mandate of ensuring that all public broadcasting services are available to all South African citizens.
The Committee was pleased that the initiative would see the provision of SABC 1, 2 and 3 as well as SABC News, which is currently airing on DStv. According to the initiative, Sentech will manage the distribution channel for the DTH-S set-top boxes.
Committee members were also happy to hear that launch of the services will respond to the concern that the public service channel has not been available to the public. The Committee wants access to the channel to be spread across rural areas.
SABC added that over and above the 4.5 million subscribers on the DStv platform, the SABC News channel will now also be available to 1.7 million households which have previously not been able to receive any SABC television services on a free-to-air basis.
The DTH-S platform was created to enable reception, particularly in areas where there was no access to normal terrestrial services. This service, according to SABC, will not replace the digital terrestrial television platform (which will be launched at a later stage) but would rather supplement it.
Ms Tshabalala said that the broadcaster’s primary focus was to create universal access for all South Africans. “The launch of SABC services on the DTH-S platform will help us further this objective and provide a service to the public of South Africa,” she added.
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Parliamentary Communication Services
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