Everyone’s a content creator now For the first 30 years of television’s existence in South Africa, linear broadcasting dominated the way content was served to the public. Broadcasters including the SABC, MultiChoice and eMedia enjoyed the privilege of captive audiences who were “programmed” through rigid schedules that determined the type of content that would be…
It is impossible to tell the story of how the business of broadcasting has evolved in South Africa without examining the industry’s political aspects. Political influence played a role in the South African broadcasting landscape even prior to the first broadcast going live on 5 January 1976. The conservative government of the time saw the…
Heinrich Marnitz and Dorianne Berry in an undated photograph from the 1970s. The two presenters were the first to appear on SABC television on 5 January 1976 and became household names From the first black-and-white broadcast to today’s world of high-definition streaming and smart screens, the introduction of television on 5 January 1976 marked more…
For 50 years, television in South Africa has been shaped as much by technology as by culture. From the country’s late but ambitious leap straight into colour broadcasting in 1976, to the arrival of satellite TV, high-definition production, digital terrestrial standards and today’s streaming-first world, there have been major technical shifts. This is the third…
Today, 5 January 2026, South Africa marks 50 years since television was launched in 1976 – a milestone that invites a hard look at what television has been in this country: late to arrive, tightly controlled, briefly reimagined, then captured again, and now increasingly sidelined by streaming and smartphones. This is the first in a…
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…
Number 1519 Connecticut Avenue lies just north of Dupont Circle, just over a 20-minute walk from the White House in Washington, DC. In 1921, the inventor Charles Francis Jenkins set up his laboratory and offices there, upstairs from a car dealership. Today there are no obvious external indications of this famous resident, nor of his…
