South Africa’s transition to full digital terrestrial broadcasting is one of those processes that one measures in aeons, like the lifespan of stars or the inexorable evolution of monkey-fish-frogs into homo sapiens. The Ministry of Communications released the latest twist in this lengthy tale this morning, so get your R700 Set Top Box fee ready while we explore Dina’s latest digital daydream, after the jump!
The SABC has long ago stopped being anything but a joke, due to mismanagement, scaly news editors, and failure to provide anything decent for us to watch. The latest scandal involving the nation’s broadcaster involves its spending R20 million on luxury vehicles for its “news team” in September.
Please notice the “allegedly” up there. Reports claim that two senior officials at the SABC have been arrested in London after refusing to pay two prostitutes for their services; the two men were in the UK for a business school initiative set up between South African and British academic boards.
South African broadcasters are planning to launch their digital terrestrial television (DTT) offering in April next year. All except the SABC, that is. They want R1,6 billion from the government to make it happen, as well as R90 million for “marketing”, and also another R145 million for a “new digital master control centre.” No word yet on when they are actually going to start making decent shows.
A probe into the SABC has revealed that the national broadcaster has been paying for its employees’ M-Net and DStv subscriptions. You can’t really blame the SABC’s employees for preferring non-SABC programming. But it does seem a little silly for the national broadcaster to be forking out for its own staff’s subscription television “privileges”. Especially when online TV is cheaper.
The SABC says its own internal investigation has found no evidence to substantiate a news article that claims the broadcaster paid Chief Mandla Mandela three million Rand for the rights to former president Mandela’s funeral.
In the olden days, when certain people wanted to appear superior to everyone else in the room, they’d loudly proclaim, “Oh, but I don’t watch TV.” Usually in the middle of a riveting conversation on the exact hue of Tamara Dey’s lipstick, or something as earth-shatteringly important as that. “TV is filled with such junk, […]
South African media’s most ubiquitous judge and man-about-town, Randall Abrahams has been filmed with what appears to be clear liquid seeping from his eye sockets during shooting for SA’s Got Talent.
I hope by now that you’re all well versed in sarcasm, and you’ll take the first part of that headline appropriately. Here’s the scoop: Convicted fraudster and conman extraordinaire, Tsepang Morie, managed to hoodwink the entire Springbok rugby team and management by posing as the head of the team’s security detail ahead of their first […]