DA welcomes ICASA’s prime time news ruling on eTV

16 February 2017

The DA welcomes the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (ICASA) ruling that eTV will not be allowed to amend its licensing conditions to remove their news broadcast from the prime time slot.

ICASA’s decision yesterday is a significant milestone in ensuring that the 12 million South Africans who rely on prime time news broadcasts as a source of information, will continue to have access to news broadcasts at a reasonable time.

eTV has an obligation to the 79% of urban adults who tune into free-to-air newscasters as a source of information and to ensure that programming is in the interests of the citizens of our country.

The DA hopes that this decision will also urge the SABC, who along with eTV made a presentation to ICASA on the 25th of October 2016, to reconsider its ambitions to also amend their license agreement.

The DA will continue our fight for every citizen’s right to information, as enshrined in the constitution, and to ensure that all actions by broadcasters are in the public interest.

Issued by Phumzile Van Damme, DA Shadow Minister of Communications, 16 February 2017