Pirated SABC soaps sold in Africa by THINUS FERREIRA
Pirated weekly episodes of South African TV soaps on DVDs are now being sold illegally on street corners in Southern African cities.
This comes after the SABC and e. tv’ s broadcasting signals from South Africa were suddenly encrypted at the beginning of July.
Growing frustration and anger is reigning among TV viewers in several African countries surrounding South Africa, where fans of popular SA TV series are now resorting to buying pirated weekly DVD discs with episodes of South African TV soap operas.
Backyard technicians, who at the beginning of July did brisk business by asking up to $ 40 to restore the SABC and e. tv on imported decoders from China and Dubai such as Philibao, Wiztech and Fortec Star, have all suddenly disappeared.
Chinese decoders faulty
Desperate viewers in countries from Zimbabwe and Angola, to Swaziland, Botswana, Mozambique, Zambia, Malawi and even Madagascar who forked over money have found that the techs who told them to pay up and wait for the signals to return are now nowhere to be found.
Frustrated TV viewers are left without their money and no available SABC or e. tv signals- but only those of moribund state-run TV stations which they say are not worth watching.
At the end of June, the South African parastatal signal distributor Sentech finally turned off the free South African television programming bonanza when it encrypted the free-to-air TV signals from South Africa’ s broadcasters beyond the country’ s borders.
The abrupt cut and encryption is the result of eBotswana’ s court case, in which the broadcaster successfully argued that it was losing viewers & revenue through the illegal availability and distribution of South African broadcasters’ TV signals outside of South Africa. eBotswana reportedly now has plans to try and secure some of the SABC’ s soaps such as Generations for the broadcaster which viewers in Botswana would be able to watch on eBotswana, instead of on SABC1, which shouldn’ t have been freely available as a TV channel in that country.
Enthralled by SA soaps
While SABC bashing is a favourite pastime of South African television viewers who frequently and vocally criticise the public broadcaster for its shoddy and outdated programming, constant repeats and reports of mismanagement while they’ re forced to pay an annual TV licence fee, viewers in other African nations look up to SABC programming which they say is far superior to what is provided in their own countries.
54 | WGSA MAG July 2013