The one thing 12 consecutive South African ministers could not do

South Africa’s analogue TV switch-off deadline was November 2011. Thirteen years and twelve communications ministers later, it has still not been achieved.

The analogue TV switch-off deadline forms part of South Africa’s digital TV migration plan, which started in 2011.

Digital TV migration is the process of switching from analogue to digital broadcasting for television.

It has many benefits, including freeing up spectrum, making space for more channels, improved picture quality, and improved functionality.

It made perfect sense for South Africa to move to digital broadcasting as quickly as possible, so it set a deadline that was ahead of global timelines.

The process started in 2001 when former Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri appointed the Digital Broadcasting Advisory Board (DBAB).

A year later, the DBAB produced a report recommending that South Africa should adopt the terrestrial version of the Digital Video Broadcasting standard (DVB-T).

This was a fantastic start. However, as with most things in the government, the wheels started to turn slower around this issue.

After five years of discussions, piloting policy frameworks, and appointing working groups, things started to happen.

In 2007, the Cabinet approved the switchover of the digital television signal in South Africa on 1 November 2008.

Matsepe-Casaburri said the analogue TV signal should be switched off in November 2011, four years ahead of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) deadline of 17 June 2015.

The government gave itself a pat on the back about its ambitious analogue TV signal switched off, which would show the world what South Africa could do.

However, this process showed that making promises and creating deadlines is easy. It is more difficult to achieve the deadlines.

Despite numerous promises that everything was on track, South Africa missed its November 2011 deadline.

It continued to miss one digital TV migration deadline after another, including the ITU deadline of 17 June 2015.

Between the November 2011 deadline and today, South Africa had 12 communications ministers.

Most of these ministers promised great progress and said they were on track to meet the analogue TV switch-off deadline. Each of them failed.

Along the way were corruption allegations, set-top box battles, and legal battles around encryption.

Many former communications ministers were implicated in corruption and malfeasance, causing further problems with the process.

South Africa’s dismal analogue TV switch-off deadline performance

The table below shows South Africa’s dismal analogue TV switch-off deadline performance over the last thirteen years.