SABC's complex mission to Planet Digital

“This is a huge financial investment in content and technology, so there are potential financial challenges. On the technology side, it introduces new parts of the broadcasting value chain in the form of coding and multiplexing which we do not do for analogue channels, and it also requires us to add technology for play-out of additional channels,” Kwele said.

“On the content side, we need to find innovative and cost-effective ways to rollout channels that drive take-up of the service, meet public service objectives and generate revenue.

“Viewers need to be educated about the change as it happens over a period where we run both analogue and digital services simultaneously for a minimum of three years until the analogue is switched off,” he added.

Total cost estimated at R3 billion

It is understood that the total cost of the project is estimated to run around R3 billion, with the Government footing ‘portions' of the bill and broadcasters (including e.tv) covering the expenses of areas such as new content and some of the marketing costs.

The Government is not bailing out the SABC, Kwele said, adding that the digital migration could only happen through a co-ordinated process and supported by Government policy. “The migration to digital requires spectrum planning which is done on a national and international level and this is a planned process that also affects e.tv and M-Net,” he explained.

He said South Africa will be one of the few countries around the world making the migration on MPEG4 technology (Moving Picture Experts Group), and yield the efficiencies gained from MPEG4 over MPEG2.

Kwele pointed out that the project will be rolled out in three phases, namely the launch phase (Sentech switches on the digital signal trial on 1 November), a dual illumination phase (service available to the public after trials - probably in the middle of 2009) and a switch-off phase (November 2011).

Critical phase

“The testing phase is the critical one because it will ensure that the technology is tested, viewer feedback is received, [and] broadcaster systems and other processes are tested in the aim to minimise disruptions and confusions once the service is launched,” he said.

However, to make this project a viable success, SA would need a little help from countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Mauritius and some from Europe, which currently do digital broadcasting or are in the process of migrating to DTT.

“Nevertheless,” Kwele said, “The SABC has a dedicated internal team of resources, supported by local and international resources in specific areas such as decoders, EPG designs, among others, for ongoing advice.

“The SABC has also invested in learning from overseas countries that underwent this kind of exercise to ensure that it learns from these countries and their broadcasters' failures and successes.

“We have also had a team working on digital migration for over 18 months now, so many of the challenges have been identified. Therefore we plan to address many of these in the short-term and long-term.”

For more information, go to www.sabc.co.za.