Television's Long Journey to South African Screens

Did you know there’s a TV museum on Long Street in Cape Town? It is a venture by Chinese company, Hisense, which means that the focus is on the company’s technological strides with regards to television and how these fit into global television history. I first visited the museum with my supervisor and both of us, scholars of film and television, were bursting with excitement as we navigated the narrow pavements to our destination. 

Fast forward a month or so and I was thrilled to be standing in front of twenty eighth graders from a high school in Delft, their teachers, officials from the Western Cape Education Department and a few representatives from the Chinese Embassy. The learners gasped when I told them that there had been no streaming TV in South Africa when they were born, and that streaming had not always been a part of life. There was horrified silence when I remarked that there was no television in South Africa when I was born, which prompted one learner to ask how we watched international soccer matches. 

We time travelled to the 1930s and the invention of television, and each time I raised a flag on my map of the world, they guessed correctly which country had acquired TV for its citizens. Intriguingly, the eighth graders did not know the old South African flag, with one brave learner volunteering that it was India’s flag. I explained how not being able to watch the moon landing with the rest of the world in July 1969, upset white South Africans and was the event that convinced the apartheid government to launch a national television service for the country.

The group watched some excerpts of old TV shows from the 1970s: the first television broadcast with continuity presenters Dorianne Berry and Heinrich Marnitz of 5 January 1976, Haas Das se Nuuskas (The News Desk with Hare in a Tie (my translation)) and Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings, an ITV animated show for children. The excerpt of the end of the day’s news, which was followed by a reading from the Bible and then the apartheid national anthem, Die Stem (The Voice), elicited murmurs from the adults in the room.

I hope the group found the presentation interesting and worthwhile. The experience was certainly rewarding for me. I learnt from the learners that they only watch TV on their phones when there is loadshedding and that TV remains an integral part of young South African lives. Most meaningful was the chance to talk about this thing that continues to impact young people’s lives and connect it to the unique South African story.