The reason for this was ideological, as the white minority regime saw it as a threat to its control of the broadcasting media, even though the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) had a virtual monopoly on radio broadcasting, while reactionary National Party ministers and the Dutch Reformed Church, saw the new medium as degenerate and immoral.
In 1971, the SABC was finally allowed to introduce a television service, which began experimental broadcasts in the main cities in mid-1975, before the service went nationwide at the beginning of 1976. In common with most of Western Europe, South Africa used the PAL system for colour television. Initially, the TV service was funded entirely through a licence fee, as in the UK, but advertising began in 1978.
The service only broadcast in English and Afrikaans, with an emphasis on religious programming on Sundays. Owing to South Africa's apartheid policies, the British actors' union Equity started a boycott of programme sales to South Africa, meaning that most acquired programming came from the United States. However, the British police drama series The Sweeney was briefly shown on SABC, but dubbed in Afrikaans.
In 1981, a second channel was introduced, broadcasting in African languages such as Zulu, Xhosa Sotho and Tswana. The main channel, now called TV1, was divided evenly between English and Afrikaans. Even to this day, subtitling on TV remains almost non-existent, the assumption being that people have no desire to watch programmes in languages they do not speak.
In 1986, the SABC's monopoly on TV was challenged by the launch of a subscription-based service known as M-Net, backed by a consortium of newspaper publishers. However, it could not broadcast its own news and current affairs programmes, which were still the preserve of the SABC. As the state-controlled broadcaster, the SABC was accused of bias towards the apartheid regime.
Following the easing of media censorship under F.W De Klerk, the SABC's news coverage moved towards being more objective, although many feared that once the African National Congress came to power, the SABC would revert to type, and serve the government of the day. However, the SABC now also carried CNN International's TV news bulletins, thereby giving South African viewers new sources of international news.
In 1996, two years after the ANC came to power, the SABC reorganised its three TV channels, so as to be more representative of different language groups. This resulted in the downgrading of Afrikaans, which now had its airtime reduced, a move that angered many whites.
Owing to the British Equity boycott, and a similar boycott by Australia, South African TV has been dominated by programming from the United States, and it was only after the end of apartheid that the boycott was lifted, and non-US programming became available. While US programming has dominated South African TV airtime, there are now many locally produced programmes, although few are known outside South Africa, and do not travel well. For example, M-Net's soap opera Egoli- Place of Gold, which features characters changing from English to Afrikaans and back, was incomprehensible to viewers in the rest of Africa. The drama series Shaka Zulu, based on the true story of the Zulu warrior King Shaka, was produced in South Africa, and shown around the world in the 1980s.
However, the SABC's dominance was further eroded by the launch of the first 'free-to-air' private TV channel, called e.tv. Satellite television also expanded, as M-Net's parent company, Multichoice, launched its digital satellite TV service (DStv).
DStv offered viewers in South Africa, and elsewhere on the continent, a far greater choice of channels, including international services like CNN, MTV, BBC World, BBC Prime, Discovery Channel, Sky News and ESPN, as well as channels such as Zee TV in Indian languages and RTP in Portuguese. There were also SABC channels aimed at viewers in the rest of Africa, a business channel, Summit TV, and a music channel, called Channel O, while KykNet catered for Afrikaans speakers.
In 2003, the New South African TV channel (NSAT) announced plans to broadcast on Sky Television in the UK, thereby reaching the large (predominantly white) expatriate community.
The introduction of TV in 1976
Political change
Local programming
New Services
External Links