Call them South Africa's lost and forgotten TV people. Hidden in its latest annual report is this sad and sobering statistic by the SABC: that 3,6 million South Africans still do not have access to any TV signal from the public broadcaster and than 5 million people don't have access to any radio signal from the public broadcaster.
''The SABC has established that there are approximately 3,6 million people in South Africa who do not have access to any SABC television channel and about 5 million people who do not have access to any SABC FM radio station,'' says the SABC in its official 2010 Annual Report.
The South African public broadcaster who has a government mandate to provide public television and radio services to all South Africans blames not itself in its annual report, but in essence where these people live. ''Additional high power transmitters will not resolve this problem due to the topography of these under serviced rural areas,'' says the SABC.
The broadcaster does however have a plan to roll out 300 low power transmitter sites over the next two years. ''Each of these low power transmitter installations will provide SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and the most appropriate radio station for each area,'' says the SABC.
