Bop TV was a television station owned by the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation, which operated from 1983 to 2003. Initially a part of the black homeland of Bophuthatswana, following the end of Apartheid it was integrated to the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
| Country | Bophuthatswana (until 1994) South Africa (1994-2003) |
|---|---|
| Broadcast area | Bophuthatswana (until 1994) South Africa (1994-2003) |
| Programming | |
| Language(s) | English |
| Ownership | |
| Owner | Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation |
| History | |
| Launched | 31 December 1983 |
| Closed | 31 July 2003 |
Commencing operations in on 31 December 1983,[1] it primarily transmitted imported programmes in an unedited form, allowing all comical references to black people to be aired. The station transmitted on the UHF band.[2]
In the apartheid era, a sizeable number of white people watched Bop TV, which offered a wider variety of entertainment and current affairs programming than the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation, despite attempts to confine the signal to black areas such as Soweto.[3]
A post-apartheid reshuffling of the SABC in 1996 resulted in the former bantustan broadcasters being integrated into it.[4][5] This infuriated the bosses of Bop Broadcasting.[6][7]
In 1997, the State Reorganisation Act led to the creation of subsidies for the former bantustan broadcasters that were now under the SABC's control. The said subsidy ended in November 2001. From now onward, the SABC was now funding Bop Broadcasting in its entirety.[8] In 2003, the SABC announced that they would shut the channel down on 31 July.[9]