eBotswana, managing director, Dave Coles told Mmegi that airing popular SABC soapies such as Generations, Muvhango and Zone 14 on eBotswana is part of the plan to attract and retain viewership when they go national. He promised that the station will nurture local producers and offer them a platform to develop themselves. "We are currently moving at lightning pace to set ourselves on the national platform and start serving the public with local programmes that will benefit them socially, economically and even financially for film producers. In our plan of course, we may get some of their favourite programmes (SABC soapies) on board so that we retain most of the viewership," Coles said.
eBotswana engineered the cut-off of SABC from free-to-air decoders through court action. Cole said Batswana have to look at this as an opportunity and a platform to creatively produce broadcast programmes and liaise with eBotswana for airing. From July 1, SABC channels are no longer available on free-to-air decoders like Wiztech, Philibao, Fortec Star and Vivid. This means Batswana cannot view popular channels like SABC 1, 2 and 3. The development comes after a year of court battles with eBotswana accusing Sentech of South Africa of deliberately allowing SABC signals to spill into Botswana for free. Coles told the Johannesburg High Court that Sentech was promoting an unfair business practice. In the final judgment the court found Sentech "wrongful, negligent and in breach" for its failure to encrypt its signal.
