Television in South Africa
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Although economically the most advanced country on the continent, South Africa was among the last countries in Africa to introduce television broadcasting to its population. The main reason was that television was viewed as potentially undermining the apartheid government's ideology. The white minority regime saw it as a threat to its control of the broadcasting media, even though the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) had a virtual monopoly on radio broadcasting. It also saw the new medium as a threat to Afrikaans and the Afrikaner volk, giving undue prominence to English, and creating unfair competition for the Afrikaans press.
The National Party's Dr Albert Hertzog, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs at the time, said that TV would come to South Africa "over [his] dead body," denouncing it as "a miniature bioscope (cinema) over which parents would have no control." He also argued that "South Africa would have to import films showing race mixing; and advertising would make (non-white) Africans dissatisfied with their lot."[1] The Dutch Reformed Church also proclaimed the new medium as "degenerate" and "immoral".
However, many white South Africans, including Afrikaners, did not share Hertzog's reactionary views, and regarded the hostility towards what he called "the little black box" as absurd and embarrassing. When Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon in 1969, South Africa was one of the few countries unable to watch the event live. Other less economically advanced countries in Africa had already introduced it: neighbouring Southern Rhodesia had introduced television in 1961 with the financial backing of South African private investors.
Slow introduction
In 1971, the SABC was finally allowed to introduce a television service. Experimental broadcasts in the main cities were performed in mid-1975, before nationwide service commenced 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.
When television launched in South Africa, it was only the second terrestrial television service in Africa to launch with a colour-only service, whereas all other services would have started in black-and-white first, then colour later. (Zanzibar in Tanzania was the first territory in Africa to do so in 1973.) The Government, advised by SABC technicians, took the view that colour television would have to be available so as to avoid a costly migration from black-and-white broadcasting technology.
The service only broadcast in English and Afrikaans, with an emphasis on religious programming on Sundays.
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. Subtitling on TV was almost non-existent, the assumption being that people had no desire to watch programmes in languages they did not speak.
In 1986, the SABC's monopoly was challenged by the launch of a subscription-based service known as M-Net, backed by a consortium of newspaper publishers. However, as part of its licensing restrictions, it could not broadcast 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.
Imported programming
Owing to South Africa's apartheid policies, the British Actors' Equity Association started a boycott of programme sales to South Africa. This, combined with a similar boycott by Australia, meant that South African TV was 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 much more widely available.
The availability of US programming was partly the result of a co-operative venture with Universal Studios in 1980 where an episode of 'Knight Rider' was filmed in the Namib desert in South West Africa, and local acting talent was involved in the filming. As a direct consequence, the SABC received the right to broadcast in American programming syndicated from Universal Studios/MCA, and through them purchased material from other studios.
Many imported programmes were dubbed into Afrikaans, the first being the British series The Sweeney, known in Afrikaans as Blitspatrollie. However, in order to accommodate English speakers, the SABC began to simulcast the original soundtrack of US series such as Miami Vice and Beverly Hills, 90210 on FM radio. This also applied to German and Dutch programmes dubbed in Afrikaans.
Political change
Following the easing of media censorship under State President 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' status by reducing its airtime, a move that angered many Afrikaans speakers.
New services
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), which offered viewers in Southern Africa 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 Internacional 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 Digital in the UK, thereby reaching the large expatriate community. It began broadcasting in 2004, but suspended broadcasts a year later. However, SABC news programming is carried on the Original Black Entertainment channel on satellite in the UK.
Recent newspaper reports indicated that Telkom, the parastatal telephone operator intended applying for a broadcast licence, to carry an IPTV service over its ADSL network, to compete with DStv. There is no cable TV service in South Africa as the low population density of the country has meant that it is not cost-effective. (The term 'cable' is wrongly used to describe M-Net's terrestrial pay-TV service). However, the second network operator in South Africa may provide such services, along with fixed-line telephony and broadband internet.
Local programming
There are currently many locally-produced programmes which are exported across Africa. For example, M-Net's soap opera Egoli: Place of Gold, has been exported to 43 African countries[2]. The drama series Shaka Zulu, based on the true story of the Zulu warrior King Shaka, was shown around the world in the 1980s, but this was only possible because the SABC had licensed the series to a US distributor. The Zulu-language comedy 'Sgudi 'Snaysi achieved SABC's highest viewing figures in the late 1980s, and was shown in Zimbabwe and Swaziland.
See also
References
- ^ Cape Times, 4 May 1967, quoted in Contact, Vol 10 no 1, p4
- ^ http://www.africafilmtv.com/pages/archive/yearbook/af2000/local.htm