Speculation is rife that Sol Kerzner is involved in South Africa’s first satellite TV channel, reports Justin Pearce
South Africa entered the satellite television era on Wednesday evening when Africa Satellite Entertainment Corporation (ASEC) launched its sports and entertainment channel amid speculation that casino king Sol Kerzner is involved in the deal.
The move is an embarrassment for the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) which intends to regulate satellite broadcasting but which still has no means of doing so.
ASEC’s programme was beamed from Swaziland via the Intelsat 704 satellite from 7pm to 11pm and will be broadcast daily.
The station is due to be launched officially in September with a full line-up of entertainment programmes. ASEC is currently broadcasting on 10,974GHz with sound on 6,68MHz. The ku-band (small dish) signal is unencoded and, for the time being, free.
Wednesday’s launch makes ASEC the first satellite broadcaster to get on the air in South Africa, several months ahead of rival MultiChoice, which will be broadcasting in association with M-Net.
The controlling interests behind ASEC are being kept under wraps, but there is speculation that Sol Kerzner’s Sun International is among the backers of the new broadcaster. Although a Sun International representative could neither confirm nor deny the speculation, observers commented that the sports footage aired during the test broadcast showed an overwhelming bias towards events at Sun International
ASEC, which initially intended being on the air before the beginning of June, delayed its first test broadcast pending an IBA ruling . Managing director Mark Grey said that the company had no intention of becoming a pirate broadcaster. However, this week the IBA appeared flummoxed by ASEC’s appearance on the air. IBA head of licensing Jac van der Merwe said the IBA councillors had discussed satellite broadcasting but had not yet reached a conclusion.
“I don’t know how we are going to deal with this issue,” Van der Merwe said.
He said that in terms of International Telecommunications Union norms, the IBA could tolerate signal spill-over from a satellite aimed at a neighbouring country. However, if the signal were aimed at South Africa — as is the case with ASEC — the IBA would have to intervene.
ASEC has got in ahead of the field by using Intelsat 704 which was already in the air.
Meanwhile, the launch of the PAS-4 satellite which is to be used by MultiChoice has been put in jeopardy by a rocket which could well be described as the Francois Pienaar of the skies — it is injury-prone. The Ariane rocket, which is due to put PAS-4 in the sky later this year, has suffered no fewer than six failed launches in the past 18 months. In January this year Ariane killed five people after crashing in China shortly after a launch, and previously at least two satellites had been destroyed by malfunctions in the rocket.