The struggle for control over HCI, Sabido and e.tv is actually a battle over the future of SA TV — and a huge government contract

MANY South Africans were riveted last week by the battle for control of HCI, but it’s worth noting that this battle is merely the outcome of a more intense, behind-the-scenes battle for control of television. The reason for the obscurity of the battle behind the battle is partly that it’s being deliberately played out privately within the corridors of power, and partly that it’s very complicated technically. The issue is the global transition from analogue to digital television, which has been held up for years in SA by intense bickering between local television stations.

The change is unambiguously a good thing. The digital system takes up less space on the broadcast spectrum, allowing better quality broadcasts and more channels. It frees up space for the cellphone industry, which has been watching the assorted delays with irritation.

Most countries have long ago started the change-over — some have even completed it. International agreements say in June 2015 countries can start reassigning the released bandwidth, so that is a deadline.

The core of the argument lies in the question of encryption. It seems weird for a free-to-air system to be encrypted at all, but having the capacity to encrypt doesn’t necessarily mean all stations will be encrypted. Besides, there are several other advantages to encryption, including the ability to have different “multiplexes”, or groups of stations run by a single entity. Most developed countries have an encrypted system, which works very much like DStv, with a host of channels, the ability to record, TV schedules included, and so on.

E.tv was now in a bit of a corner, but former communications minister Yunus Carrim came partly to its aid with a clever compromise: stations that wanted to broadcast free-to-air could do so, but those that did not could do so too. Crucially, this meant SA would still need a locally produced set-top box. He then lost his job. Interesting.

Encryption also requires a set-top box that would normally be made by a local manufacturer with local specs. The alternative would be generic, imported, low-quality boxes.

The brief history of the transition battle is that originally SA was going to go with no encryption capacity, but as time passed and the technology improved, this seemed retrograde. E.tv came out in favour of encryption and DStv against it. Originally, the SABC was in favour of encryption, presumably because it would give the parastatal a way to force its many errant viewers to pay their TV licences.

Why would DStv, a satellite system, be against encryption or even care? The secret is that the SABC channels and particularly e.tv are by a huge margin the most watched channels on DStv. They are currently carried on DStv for free. We watch it there mainly because it’s easier than juggling remotes. DStv desperately wants it to stay that way.

What is more, if the signals were encrypted, DStv might end up having to pay for the most popular offerings on its bouquet. DStv sought to escape this tight spot by doing a sneaky thing — it bought off the SABC. In a controversial deal with then SABC acting CEO Hlaudi Motsoeneng, DStv paid, we think, about R1-billion for the rights to broadcast SABC channels — on condition that the SABC supported an unencrypted system. The legality of that contract is open to question.

E.tv was now in a bit of a corner, but former communications minister Yunus Carrim came partly to its aid with a clever compromise: stations that wanted to broadcast free-to-air could do so, but those that did not could do so too. Crucially, this meant SA would still need a locally produced set-top box. He then lost his job. Interesting.

The gossip is that the presidential clique is against encryption because government has promised to fund R700-miilion of set-top boxes and some of the president’s friends were looking to get the contract and to buy them in, say, India. The twist is that the new communications minister, Siyabonga Cwele, actually agrees with the approach of the old minister.

This background partly explains the intense pressure on e.tv to win friends in government — and provides yet another example, as if we needed it, of how avarice in government is delaying technological development, new services and the public good.

Source: Rand Daily Mail – Tim Cohen