22
No. 37261
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 24 JANUARY 2014
3.2.2 Growth and Outlook
There has been considerable growth in the number of services available in most areas, particularly in the community broadcasting area. Other significant changes are the issuing of
licences by ICASA for all SABC services (which prior to the Broadcasting Act operated under
grandfathered licences and did not have detailed conditions) and for satellite subscription
services. The SABC is licensed to offer three analogue television channels. One of the
channels is licensed as a commercial service. Two additional regional public television
services licences were issued to the SABC in 2005. The reach of SABC has been
continously extended. More channels will be launched on the DTT. SABC launched a 24-
hour news service on the DSTV platform with a promise that the news service will be
available free-to-air on the launch of DTT. The SABC operates 18 radio stations including 15
public radio stations and 3 public commercial services. Radio XK broadcasting in in!Xu and
KHWE launched in 2004. The SABC radio services cover all official languages. There is one
free-to-air commercial terrestrial broadcaster that is privately owned, etv. The number of
channels operated by etv will increase with the introduction of DTT. Two free-to-air Direct-toHome (DTH) services were launched in 2013. There is one terrestrial subscription television
service and two satelliite subscription services. 15 commercial radio services operate in SA.
No of services/titles
250
200
--
--
150
Daily newspapers
100 -
Pvlajor weeklies.
=.<0
0
1991
2004
2002
2012
22
18
25
21
-,,,
.22
11-
135
E.'
35
215
189
Dail. ne,.. = paper`
Major ,...^ee I-lief
Radic station`
TV channels
25
34
_.
Radio stations
Tv' channels
25
3.2.3 Penetration and uptake
In terms of reach, 6.16 million (12.3% of the population) do not have access to Radio
service, 7.38 million people (14.7% of the population) do not have access to Analogue
Television services, 4.15 million people (8.3% of the population) do not have access to any
terrestrial broadcasting services. A total of 670 526 people (1.34% of the population) only
have access to one television service.
Substantial progress has been made with respect to expanding the analogue terrestrial
television broadcast network from 60% of the 'population reach' in 1998 to over 91.7%
population coverage in 2012. In the same year the public broadcaster's SABC 1 and SABC 2
were reported to each have population coverage of 91.2% and 92.5%, respectively with
SABC 3 having 82.1% coverage. There remains a segment of the population which does not
have access to television but this has been substantially reduced from 40% of population in
1998 (as reported in the White Paper) to less than 10% population coverage in 2012.
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