SABC 2

South Africa was already served by some closed-circuit systems in hotels before SABC TV started.^[2] SABC began airing test cards in early 1975 on its transmitters^[3] and started trialling its first television service on 5 May 1975 in South Africa's largest cities, and officially launched its first television channel on 6 January 1976 under the name SABC Television/SAUK-Televisie. The launch of SABC TV caused South Africa to become the last country in the industrialised world to introduce television and had a viewership base of one million. As with other countries, the launch of television had negative effects in other sectors of the country's entertainment industry, especially cinemas. Within the corporation, SABC's regional radio stations would suffer from loss of listeners to the new television network, but Radio 5's playlists remained unchanged.^[4]


The service opened at 6pm with a bilingual opening speech presented by Heinrich Maritz (Afrikaans) and Dorianne Berry (English), the culmination of a five-year project. The first programme seen was a special presentation from the Children's and Youth division, in Afrikaans, which presented Haas Kas and other characters produced by the unit. The English-language The Everywhere Express, which had been shown in the test service the previous year, was also introductory in nature.^[5]


The official opening of the service was at 8pm with a speech from Prime Minister John Vorster.^[5]


As of 1977, the SABC TV service was delivered over eighteen transmitters:


Two years after launch, a weekly newspaper called the service "prissy and pricey": "prissy" due to the strict moral standards of the SABC and "pricey" due to the high costs of both buying a television set and paying the licence fee. The introduction of television advertising would at the time threaten advertisers in newspapers. The schedule lasted for five hours (6pm to 11pm, earlier closing on Sunday nights) with a few hours of sports on Saturdays. On a technical level, the SABC claimed to have the highest standards, but not at programming level. The service was also touted as a propaganda vehicle for the then-ruling National Party.^[7]


By 1979, the broadcasts were picked up by 80% of the white population and 42% of the black population.^[5]


On 1 January 1982, two television channels were introduced: TV2 broadcasting in Zulu and Xhosa and TV3 broadcasting in Sotho and Tswana, both targeted at a Black urban audience and broadcasting on the same television frequency.^[8] The main network, now called TV1, divided its broadcasting languages evenly between English and Afrikaans, as before. In 1986, a new service called TV4 was introduced, carrying sports and entertainment programming, also timesharing with TV2 and TV3 on the same frequency, which stopped broadcasting at 9:30pm.^[9]


In 1991, TV2, TV3 and TV4 were merged into a new full-fledged network, CCV (Contemporary Community Values).^[10] A separate network was introduced, TopSport Surplus (TSS), with TopSport being the brand name for the SABC's sport coverage. However, it was replaced by NNTV (National Network TV), an educational non-commercial channel in 1994.^[11]


In 1994, with post-Apartheid democratisation, it was suggested that TV1 should broadcast entirely in English.^[12]


In 1996, the SABC reorganised its three TV networks with the aim of making them more representative of the various language groups.^[13] These were renamed to SABC 1 (formerly TV1), SABC 2 (formerly CCV) and SABC 3 (formerly NNTV). The amount of time allocated to Afrikaans-language programming on the new channel (SABC 2) fell from 50% to 15% - a move that alienated Afrikaans speakers. A spokesman for the SABC said that such a reduction was "inevitable in the post apartheid era", and that the SABC had not abided to the IBA's recommendations.^[13]


Under the new format, 40% of SABC 2's schedule was in English, with the remaining 60% given to the other languages.^[13] The new service catered at Afrikaans and Sotho speakers during prime time, all-day language breakdown was as of the time of the change: 41% English, 15% Afrikaans, 8% Sepedi, 6% Sesotho, 8% Setswana and 1% each for Xitsonga and Tshivenda. 21% of its programming was multilingual.^[13]


For 2002, the channel was committed to be "the voice, the heart and the mind of South Africans", owing to its broadcast footprint - the largest out of any SABC terrestrial network. Aiming at increasing its audiences in the Black and Afrikaans sectors, the channel sought to increase its local offering, reflecting individual South African cultures and communities. Three new projects were being developed, The Res, Dark City and Zero Tolerance. 7de Laan increased its number of weekly episodes to four, while Muvhango was planned to enter its third season in April that year.^[14]