The role and Preservation of Public broadcasting in an ever-changing digital media landscape within South Africa

Abstract

Introduction : The power of communication through media and in particular television has assisted in the development and shaping of the history and cultures of the world as we know them. With every

new technological advancement and development, speculations arise on the impact this will have on the socio-economic health of a nation in a given country. At times these speculations turn out to be correct, however because social responses are not always scientific but influenced by psychographics and the complexities of human behaviour, the speculations are sometimes contradicted. Considering the current emergence of the digital technologies within the Media industry and in the world including Africa, the presentation will look at the impact of these developments on public broadcasting, specifically focusing on South Africa. It will explore theimpact of this digital revolution by looking at past trends, industry theories and existing research data. How can the new digital developments within media develop South Africa or Africa in delivering against the Millenium development goals?

Objectives: This presentation aims to discuss the impact of the new digital developments on public broadcasting and investigate the state of public broadcasting within this digital landscape.

Rationale: In 2008 the South African Public broadcaster was in financial strain and could no longer commission a lot of fresh local content. As it is, about 35% of the content was international content and about 20% of the content was old content being repeated, as per the reports that would be drafted by me at the time. This lack of finance by the public broadcaster was brought about by the required local quotas that are aligned to the broadcast license provided by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) Additional financial constraints resulted from the fruitless expenditure on content that was being acquired in anticipation of the digital migration that was to take place in 2010 but later postponed to 2015 and then 2017. This further impacted the production of local content and pushed many producers to the Pay-tv platform Dstv.