Television turns 50 in South Africa

This Monday marks 50 years since television was officially launched in South Africa – on 5 January 1976, a lifetime ago.

South Africa was late – very late – to launch television. While many countries embraced TV in the 1950s and 1960s, apartheid-era government concerns about foreign cultural influence and social change delayed its introduction by decades.

When broadcasts finally kicked off in the mid-1970s, they did so under the tight control of the SABC, initially offering a single channel with limited broadcasting hours and heavy government oversight.

Early television in South Africa was formal and highly centralised, but it nevertheless quickly became a powerful cultural force. Programming gradually expanded, though political censorship remained pervasive until the democratic transition of the early 1990s reshaped broadcasting policy and finally gave the SABC greater editorial freedom.

The 1980s also saw the emergence of pay television, with M-Net launching in October 1986. It introduced subscription broadcasting, premium sport and international entertainment, fundamentally altering the economics of South African television and giving the SABC competition for the first time. The arrival of e.tv in 1998 broke the SABC’s free-to-air monopoly and ushered in a more competitive TV environment.

Relentless disruption

Over the past two decades, television has faced relentless disruption. Digital terrestrial television promised a cleaner break from analogue broadcasting but was plagued by delays – and still isn’t done. Meanwhile, satellite services expanded rapidly, and global streaming platforms upended traditional viewing habits.

Today linear TV coexists uneasily with on-demand services, social video and mobile-first consumption, forcing broadcasters to rethink both content and business models.

Read: As South Africa dawdles on DTT, television technology moves on

To mark the 50-year milestone since the introduction of television, TechCentral is running a special series of articles throughout this week examining television’s past, present and uncertain future. This coverage starts with a piece on Monday morning on the SABC’s past five decades, and what comes next for a public broadcaster that’s increasingly found itself on the ropes.  – © 2025 NewsCentral Media