South African Broadcasting Corporation

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Infobox radio tower icon
South African Broadcasting Corporation
Station logo
TV station ( public service )
Program type Full program
reception Terrestrial , cable , satellite
Image resolution ( Entry missing )
Start of transmission 1936
List of TV channels
This article or section needs revision: The article is out of date. For more than twenty years (!), With the exception of two minor matters about the manipulation of messages and wiretapping by the secret service, nothing has been done. Twenty years is an "eternity" in the technical field. There is no information about the planning and development of the channels, the expansion, the technology, the staff, the content of the program, their impact, etc. In view of the founding year 1936, the history of the institution is very short. B. the role during the war years.
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The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) or Suid-Afrikaanse Uitsaaikorporasie (SAUK) is the public radio and media company in South Africa founded in 1936 . It operates three television and twenty radio programs.

history

SABC headquarters in the Johannesburg suburb of Auckland Park
SABC office in Cape Town

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was founded in 1936 and replaced the African Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) , which had existed since 1927 . The SABC held the broadcasting monopoly in South Africa for a long time and was controlled by the government. In 1936 broadcasting began in English , and a year later the second radio program in Afrikaans was added. From 1940 there were also broadcasts in African languages.

The SABC is also known as Suid-Afrikaanse Uitsaaikorporasie (SAUK), although this name is no longer officially used; the now common Afrikaans name of the station is Radio Sonder Grense .

From 1950 to 1985 the SABC operated a commercial radio station (Springbok Radio) with broadcasts in English and Afrikaans and has also broadcast television programs since 1979.

From 1996 the SABC was restructured with a view to the democratic changes in the country and today it offers full radio and television programs in the official languages ​​of the Republic of South Africa.

Until 1979 the SABC was also active in Namibia , which at that time was under South African control. From this year, the South West African Broadcasting Corporation (SWABC) was responsible for this. After independence from Namibia in 1990, it became the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).

A continuum in the history of the station is the allegation of closeness to the government. While the SABC was accused of supporting apartheid politics during the white minority government, its dependence on the African National Congress ( ANC) was later criticized:

During the white rule in South Africa at times the majority of the senior executives of the SABC belonged to the Broederbond , an Afrikaaner secret organization. And in the course of the expansion of the SABC's television programs, the role of Director General was transferred from Riaan Eksteen , a former UN ambassador to South Africa, to Steve de Villiers in February 1983 . The media spokesman for the Progressive Federal Party described this personnel change as an act of integrating the station into the state system and reducing it to the mouthpiece of the National Party .

Even after the restructuring in 1996, the SABC is accused of preferring the ruling party, in this case the African National Congress ANC , in the news sector. In a ruling by the Johannesburg Supreme Court in 2011, it was established that SABC Managing Director Snuki Zikalala had "extensive news manipulation" in 2006/07 - in many cases at the direct instruction of the then South African President Thabo Mbeki - and dismissed critical journalists have been.

In January 2014, in the run-up to the parliamentary elections , SABC chairwoman Ellen Zandile Tshabalala told journalists that their communications were being bugged by the South African secret service and that they should therefore behave loyally to the ruling ANC. Following public outrage, Tshabalala said her comments had been taken out of context.

Despite the criticized information policy of the SABC, the station is still the dominant provider of radio and television programs in South Africa.

Radio

The SABC initially set up radio services in the country's official languages ​​at the time, English and Afrikaans , on medium wave . Broadcasts in African languages ​​such as isiZulu , isiXhosa , Sesotho and Setswana followed later. In 1950, the first private radio station started under the name Springbok Radio , broadcasting on medium wave in English and Afrikaans. Regional music stations started using ultra-short waves in the early 1960s.

In 1966, an international station called Radio RSA was started, which broadcast on shortwave in twelve languages, including English , Afrikaans , Swahili , French , Portuguese , Dutch and German (from 1984 in eleven languages). Today it is called Channel Africa .

In 1996, after the end of apartheid, the SABC restructured its stations very heavily. The main channel in English became SAfm . A few black radio announcers were also hired. After initial difficulties, the new station became very popular again and became a flagship of the new democracy. Due to differences between the government and the media company, the station was restructured again in 2003. However, the station suffered greatly from these changes. The main station in Afrikaans was renamed Radio Sonder Grense in 1995 .

After the end of apartheid, the SABC received increased competition from numerous new regional and local private radio stations, of which only a few previously broadcasted to South Africa from abroad or homelands . In addition, SABC sold its commercial regional broadcasters, such as Highveld Stereo / Hoëveld Stereo , Kfm and Radio Oranje, in the 1990s .

Channel list

watch TV

The Republic of South Africa was one of the last countries in the world to introduce television. South Africa was already the most economically developed country in Africa in the past, but developing countries that were far worse off introduced television much earlier. South Africa, for example, was one of the few countries in the world where the moon landing in 1969 could not yet be followed live.

The reason for the rejection of television lay mainly in the conservative circles, who viewed television as a threat to the political and social system of the country at the time. Television was seen as a dangerous medium that would spoil children and young people. It was also seen as inevitable to import series and films for television from the USA, where the natural coexistence of blacks and whites would have been seen as well as the (then dominant "white") Afrikaans language versus "black" English Would fall behind. It was also feared that broadcasting television advertising would make the then disadvantaged black population even more dissatisfied with their situation if goods were constantly advertised that this group could never have afforded.

After long discussions about the introduction of television in South Africa, test broadcasts were only carried out in major cities in 1975. On January 6, 1976, the first television station was broadcast nationwide. Financing has been secured through a license fee since 1978. At the beginning the programs were only broadcast in English and Afrikaans. The local soap opera The Villagers , which is set around a gold mine, was very well received, while other national productions such as The Dingleys were rejected as amateur.

The only advantage of the late introduction of television in South Africa was that it was possible to broadcast in color right from the start, and at least the expensive conversion from black and white to color was saved.

In December 1981, two more television programs went on the air called TV2 and TV3. They designed their programs in five of the country's African languages. From this point on, the main channel was called TV1 and was designed for the information needs of the white, colored and Indian ethnic groups.

The third station, Topsport Surplus (TSS), was mainly intended for sports broadcasts. It was later renamed National Network TV (NNTV). The stations could also be received in neighboring countries such as Botswana , Lesotho and Swaziland . The SABC also helped the South West African Broadcasting Corporation in Namibia to set up its own television station in 1981. At the beginning, however, most parts of the program were flown in directly from South Africa.

In 1996 the SABC restructured its television channels so that the different languages ​​could be better represented. The new channels were called SABC 1, SABC 2 and SABC 3. This resulted in a reduction in the Afrikaans broadcasting times, which led to anger among the Afrikaans community. In addition, the SABC took over the 1984 created television station Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Television (Bop TV) from the homeland of Bophuthatswana , which worked in Setswana , English and Afrikaans. In addition, the channel SABC Africa was founded, which could be received across the continent and whose broadcasting ended in 2008.

Around 2005, two more regional TV stations (SABC4 and SABC5) had started planning. You should broadcast in various African languages ​​without English-speaking parts for the northern and southern parts of the country. This project was initially not pursued any further because the financing conditions for licensing by the regulatory authority ICASA were not met. Funding from the state budget was requested. Considerations in this regard extended beyond 2016.

Channel list

1976 to 1995

Since 1996

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ SABC subpage of the television channels
  2. ↑ SABC subpage of the radio stations
  3. ^ A b South African Institute of Race Relations : Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1983 . Johannesburg 1984, pp. 216-217.
  4. ↑ http://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-africa-byo-989-article-SABC+manipulated+news+on+Zimbabwe,+Court+Ruled.html
  5. ↑ Big Brother is watching the SABC. Mail & Guardian of April 11, 2014 (English), accessed July 26, 2014
  6. ^ Media Club South Africa: South African television. SABC Africa . on www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com (English)
  7. ↑ Chris Armstrong, Richard Collins: Digital Turmoil for South African TV . at www.wits.ac.za (English)
  8. ↑ 24.com: SABC wants to launch 5 new TV channels . on www.channel24.co.za (English)