Over a hundred community radio stations could soon go off air over non-payment of signal distribution fees to Sentech.
The company, which offers signal distribution services to most of the country’s licensed broadcasters says the stations owe it R30 million.
Sentech says there are 134 community radio stations on their platform, with only 26 of them in good standing.
Sentech Spokesperson Milisa Kentane says they have already pulled off the plug on seventeen of them (stations).
Kentane says, “These arrears have been going on for a very long time, some for over thirty months. We have been sending communication out to those community broadcasters indicating areas and requesting payments. In November 2017, we sent letters of final demand indicating that if payments were not made then Sentech would have to switch off.”
“The switch off actually commenced on April 9, 2018,” added Kentane.
