Delegates attending the South African Public Broadcasting Policy Review dialogue in Midrand, north of Johannesburg, have been challenged to come up with innovative ways of funding signal distributor Sentech.
This is in an effort to alleviate financial pressure on the SABC.
It emerged on Thursday that Sentech was the second largest cost driver at the public broadcaster which is constantly in financial trouble.
Director-General in the Communications Department Dr Mashilo Boloka proposed a change in Sentech’s funding model.
Boloka says: “The big question is shouldn’t we be saying for public and community Sentech should be publicly funded so that the SABC’s job is to make sure that there is content in those transmitters. Sentech’s job is making sure that each and every community, wherever they are, they have a transmitter and they’ve got a signal.”
