ICASA to announce commercial TV applicants next week

It is official! The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) will announce the successful applicants for commercial satellite and cable subscription broadcasting licences next week Wednesday, 12 September 2007, at 11am, spokesperson Sekgoela Joel Sekgoela said yesterday, Tuesday 4 September.
Issa Sikiti da SilvaBy Issa Sikiti da Silva
5 Sep 2007

A total of 16 applicants are vying for the contested crown or crowns, depending on how many licences the communications authority will issue, a question Sekgoela declined to comment on.

“At this stage, I cannot divulge the number of licences that are going to be issued,” he said when asked by Bizcommunity.com to reveal the number of successful licensees.

“Remember, when we invited interested parties to apply, we did not say that there should be a specific number of applicants in this process. So, we also would like to keep the number of granted licences a well-guarded secret at least until the date of announcement.”

The venue of the announcement will be communicated shortly, Sekgoela added.

In terms of Section 9 of the Electronic Communications Act 36 of 2005, ICASA said it received 18 applications in 2006 in response to an ITA (Invitation to Apply) for commercial satellite and cable subscription broadcasting services licences as published in Government Gazette No. 28455 dated 31 January 2006.

The following is the list of all original applicants for commercial TV and their proposed station names:

  1. Black Earth Communications, BESTv
  2. Walking on Water (Pty) Ltd, WoW TV
  3. Multichoice Africa (Pty) Ltd, DStv
  4. Sentech Limited, VIEWSAT
  5. Deukom (Pty) Ltd, Deukom
  6. World Space Southern Africa, World Space Southern Africa
  7. Multichannel TV (Pty) Ltd, Multichannel TV
  8. Q. Digital Cable Vision (Pty) Ltd, Q. Digital Cable Vision
  9. Goal Technology Solutions (Pty) Ltd, Goal Technology TV
  10. On Digital Media, ODM TV
  11. Khetha Media (Pty) Ltd, Khetha
  12. Telkom Media (Pty) Ltd, IC Entertainment
  13. Max TV (Pty) Ltd, Max TV
  14. Laegoma Digital (Pty) Ltd, Mi Digital
  15. Quantic Television Network, Quantic Television Network
  16. African Spirit Trading 330 (Pty) Ltd, Foot Print Media
  17. Ndabenhle Group (Pty) Ltd, SMTV
  18. SABIDO (Pty) Ltd, E-Sat

World Space and Multichannel have since withdrawn their applications for reasons known to themselves, leaving the ‘race' with only 16 ‘runners'.

About Issa Sikiti da Silva

Issa Sikiti da Silva is a winner of the 2010 SADC Media Awards (print category). He freelances for various media outlets, local and foreign, and has travelled extensively across Africa. His work has been published both in French and English. He used to contribute to Bizcommunity.com as a senior news writer.
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