300 hundred Africans die but don't make my local news station's news bulletin

Question: how comes BBC British domestic radio news and the BBC News website  led this morning with the story of more than 300 Africans having died off the Italian coast when a ship carrying them sank while the South African radio stations I listened to this morning didn't run the story at all ?

These days I switch between five radio stations: two Johannesburg talk stations - Power FM and 702, the national public broadcaster's english language station - SAFM (all on FM - no digital audio broadcasting in South Africa) and BBC World Service and BBC's domestic talk station (via Internet). My local award-winning news station - Radio 702 -  and my national talk station - SAFM - didn't run the story at all in the news bulletins I listened to this morning.

On their website today, the BBC leads with the story on their main news page. It also has testimony from survivors and quotes from the Italian interior minister in a detailed story last updated this morning.  It has a video report by their European Correspondent Gavin Hewitt. It also has a background piece on African migrants from the horn of Africa by their Africa correspondent, Andrew Harding. SABC's news website does not have the story on their home page. Under 'Africa', you can find a Reuters story from yesterday. On 702's news website home page there is a reference to the story buried low down on the page. Their coverage relies on the same Reuters story  from yesterday that SABC carries.

The Italian Interior Minister said yesterday that "This is not an Italian tragedy, this is a European tragedy," according to the BBC. It appears he and South Arican news editors are in agreement that it is not an African story.

In this case the cynical guidance that 'if it bleeds it leads' does not seem to have been applied. 'What is newsworthy?' is a question that occupies the minds of editors and journalism educators frequently and no two editors may agree. So there is always room for differences and choices between publications. But the day after the bomb in Nairobi, there was plenty of coverage in South African media. This time virtual silence. Maybe refugees and migrancy is somehow less interesting to editors here than global terrorism? There is also a question of resources. A recent report on South African newsrooms from Wits journalism highlights shrinking newsrooms. But even where editors are forced to rely on agencies, their weighting of this story demonstrates to me a shocking lack of connection to the continent and continental issues.

(note that the links in this piece were found on the morning of 4th October. If you are reading this story at another time they are likely to be out of date). 

Dont hold your breath for the digital dividend

Last night I heard Duncan McLeod, editor of TechCentral responding to the news that the Minister of Communications, Dina Pule, has withdrawn her appeal to a court ruling for etv in a case related to digital migration. Digital Migration offers lots of potential opportunities: more free to air television channels, more broadcasters, and a 'digital dividend' of freed-up radio spectrum currently taken up by analogue television which could be used for other purposes (bandwidth that mobile operators are particularly keen to gain access to but more on that later). In the course of the interview, Duncan suggested that if no more mistakes were made in getting DTT rolled out, it could start this year and be completed by the end of next year. The Department of Communications has been equally optimistic in predicting the time it will take from launching digital television and beginning delivery of the set top boxes required to watch it and the time that enough of the population will have switched over to enable switching off the current analogue transmitters. So is one to  two years plausible? I think not.

This chart from the International Telecommunications Union gives an indication of why. Only two European countries have succeeded in completing the process in two years. The UK began digital broadcasting the '90s and only finally switched off the last analogue transmitter last year. The ITU says that those starting later have benefitted from learnings of those who came before them but still the average time taken is around five years.

I would argue that as the current framework stands, we are likely to be slower rather than faster than average. The main driver that will determine how long it takes is how quickly audiences shift - getting a set top box and watching digital rather than analogue transmissions. This in turn is likely to depend on what additional content will be on offer on the digital platform.  etv appears to be ready to start new services immediately - it could for example make its 24 hour news channel - currently only available to DSTV subscribers - available on DTT. SABC is another story. When they presented to ICASA some time ago they stated that they would need additional funding from government in order to roll out their plans for new channels - money that has not been forthcoming. Without sufficient new channels and content, take up of set top boxes is likely to be slow.

This is bad news - for television, for mobile and especially for wireless Internet use in South Africa. The frequencies that will become available could be used for next generation mobile services like LTE but they could also be used for unlicenced wireless (like Wifi) services which could greatly expand the opportunities for cheap or free internet services.