In particular, it would have to decide, at least in principle, how private television stations would complete the picture. This view of national regulators about the total environment has determined the kind of television available in other countries. This report has therefore included some discussion about the obligations the Authority will expect private television stations to perform, as well as rules under which the public and private broadcasters will compete. After weighing the submissions from various interest groups and members of the public, the Authority has developed a model of broadcasting that should be established in South Africa, given the country's needs. Radio and television will be regulated differently.
Radio is accessible to many more people, and is much cheaper to produce for.
It is possible to regulate each station more lightly on the basis that, overall, the combination of radio stations will provide the listener with an ever widening range of choices. In this way, speakers of all 11 languages should be able to hear broadcasts in their preferred languages in most places where that language is spoken. To reduce the SABC's overwhelming dominance of radio considerably, by selling off all its regional commercial stations, making them available to new entrants to the radio industry, and opening up new station licences around the country in a measured way that will ensure a steady expansion of the industry, starting as soon as the regulatory process allows, but without leading to fragmentation of the industry. To allow different kinds of radio for different audiences, with relatively light regulation that allows stations to format in a way that caters for a range of tastes on different stations. In developing its approach to television, the Authority took a different position, based on the different cost structures for television, which limit the amount of time that can be devoted to any one interest or language that viewers want to watch.