NEWS channel owned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation
Television channel
SABC NEWS is both a South African 24-hour news channel owned by the South African Broadcasting Corporation as well as the name of the news division of the broadcaster.
History
The News Service was established in June 1950, replacing the programmes of the BBC. Although this was because the BBC broadcasts were seen as giving a British viewpoint of current affairs, there were also concerns that the SABC service would become overly pro-government, or "Our Master's Voice". By 1968, it had over 100 full-time reporters in the main cities and local correspondents all over the country, with overseas news provided by Reuters, AFP, AP and UPI. There was a News Film Unit which, prior to television in 1976, produced films for news agencies and television organisations.
In 1998, the SABC began to broadcast two TV channels to the rest of Africa: SABC Africa, a news service, and Africa 2 Africa, entertainment programming from South Africa and other African countries, via DStv.[1] In 2003, Africa 2 Africa was merged with SABC Africa to create a hybrid service, drawing programming from both sources.[2] SABC Africa closed in August 2008 after the SABC's contract with DStv was not renewed.[3] In 2007, the SABC launched a 24-hour international news channel, SABC News International, but closed in 2010.[4]
In 2017 SABC announced that they would launch two new channels on DStv as part of a deal with Multichoice to add a news service and a general entertainment channel, SABC News and SABC Encore.[5]
South Africa
