The SABC is on a journey to transform its legacy assets and newsroom technology.
SABC News is ranked among the top industry leaders and the most trusted news brands in South Africa, according to the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2021.
This success can largely be attributed to its partnership with the SABC’s technology division, which drives its technological enablement and advancement. Even though SABC News has its own technology news resources and operators, most of the news systems, vehicles, camera equipment, and studio equipment are supplied and maintained by the division.
SABC News has been successful at delivering events of national, continental and global significance to South African audiences, including political rallies, speeches of national importance, local and national elections, and funerals of former presidents and other critical people. Many of these projects have been led by the technology division, working closely with news and current affairs to ensure strong technological infrastructure and operational excellence across radio, TV and digital platforms.
Enabling digital news
The digital enablement of the news and current affairs systems, facilities, and content is in progress. Having existed for more than 85 years, the SABC owns a library of legacy content that must be preserved, has workflows and infrastructure that must be enhanced, and critical news facilities that must deliver optimally.
The SABC has embarked on a process to digitise all its legacy content, with 166 842 hours of content completed so far. Of the 300 000 hours of remaining content, 180 000 belong to the news and current affairs division, as illustrated in table 1 below:
| Tape format | Expected hours of content to preserve |
| 1-inch C-format | 20 000 hours (final 20k for TV) |
| Betacam SP | 120 000 hours (100k for TV and 20k for TV news) |
| DV/DVCAM SP/LP | 10 000 hours (10k for TV news) |
| DVCPRO | 150 000 hours (150k for TV news) |
These formats will be converted to those that can be played in the digital playout systems. Ordinarily, this would be a four-year project due to the limitations of most conversion technologies that cannot digitise more than 50 000 hours per annum. Nonetheless, the news content is targeted for completion in the first two years.
News digital workflows and infrastructure
Technology, news and current affairs have embarked on a digitalisation journey for our outdated workflows and playout systems. This will see the news production system, newsroom computer system, and the branding and graphic playout system all being enhanced to meet the latest digital demands. Internally, these projects are commonly referred to as the triplets, and they will be completed by the end of the first quarter of the 2022/23 fiscal year (June 22).
Modernising news facilities
The news production facilities are of critical importance to SABC News’ success. For this reason, the technology team has embarked on an upgrade of all news studios, provision of the operational news studio production cameras, and the replacement of news studio 10 and studio 12 mixer consoles. All these initiatives are at advanced internal approval stages and should be concluded by the end of 2022.
There are numerous projects underway to enhance SABC News’ offering through technology. As such, SABC News remains tightly aligned with technology to ensure that news content is delivered in the most accessible and sustainable fashion. Initiatives are conceived and driven together with the aim of fulfilling the SABC’s public mandate and reaffirming the independence and impartiality of our news.
Lungile Binza is the group executive for technology at the SABC. Previously, he worked as a technology executive for banking and financial institutions, as well as a manufacturing company. He holds two master’s degrees, in Information Systems and Business Administration, and is currently finalising his PhD in Artificial Intelligence.
