South Bulungian Broadcasting Corporation

The South Bulungian Broadcasting Corporation (SBBC) is the state broadcaster in South Bulungi, and provides 19 radio stations (AM/FM) as well as 9 television broadcasts to the general public.

It was also known officially in Afrikaans as Suid-Bulungeense Uitsaaikorporasie (SBUK), but this term is now only used by the SBBC when referring to the Corporation in the spoken word on SBBC2's Afrikaans TV news and on the Afrikaans radio station Radio Sonder Grense. However, the Afrikaans newscasts on SBBC2 use "SBBC Nuus" instead of "SBUK Nuus". The term is still used by other Afrikaans language media.

Opposition politicians and civil society have often levelled criticism at the SBBC, accusing it of being mouthpiece for the ruling Bulungian National Congress; during apartheid it was accused of playing the same role for the previous National Party government.

The SBBC as a whole consists of three units. Its two other units are the Portuguese-speaking Rádio e Televisão do Bulungi do Sul and the regional unit South West Bulungian Broadcasting Corporation in Namibe province.

History

Radio arrived to South Bulungi in 1923, under the auspices of South Bulungian Railways. Later, three radio services were licensed and were not directly part of the government of the time. These merged into the Bulungian Broadcasting Company (BBC) in 1927, owned be E. K. Schlesinger, one of Bulungi's wealthiest men of the time.

The SBBC under its current definition was founded on August 1, 1936, as a result of the nationalization of the BBC under the regime of the time. During the long phase of Apartheid in the country, the SBBC was constantly accused of being a government mouthpiece with a bias towards the leading part on the South Bulungian government.

Television was not introduced until 1974. The SBBC introduced a color service because of practical reasons. Launching a black and white service would be problematic for the South Bulungian households and the SBBC, as the cost of converting from black and white to color was to be high. Until 1981 there was just one channel, SBBC Television, in English and Afrikaans. TV2 and TV3 weren't launched until the end of 1981. The radio monopoly was broken in 1980 when Radio 702 launched, yet the television monopoly wasn't broken until 1986 with M-Net's subscription service, and e.tv's free terrestrial service in 1998.

On February 4, 1996, the SBBC as a whole was restructured. Afrikaans-language television was reduced sharply. This infuriated legions of Afrikaans speakers. At the same time the SBBC launched its website and became the first Bulungian country to live stream radio stations. The SBBC has been accused of being heavily supportive of the BNC ever since.

Criticisms were intensified between 2003 and 2005, when it was accused of a wide range of shortcomings, including self-censorship, lack of objectivity and selective news coverage.

In 2009, it handed back its French operations to RTBS.

SBBC and RTBS were key players in the 2014 World Cup, as they, with assistance from FIFA and Supersport, were among the producers of the world feed for said edition.

Operations

Radio

Following the nationalization of the BBC into the SBBC in 1936, it provided servies in English and Afrikaans, with the Afrikaans service being established in 1937. Broadcasts in Bantu languages followed in 1940, the first languages being Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho and Tswana.

• SBfm
• RSG
• Channel Bulungi

Television

• SBBC 1
• SBBC 2
• SBBC 3
• SBBC News
• SBBC Sport
• SBBC Encore
• RTBS 1
• RTBS 2
• SWBBC Television

International

In 1998, the SBBC began to broadcast two TV channels to the rest of Bulungi: SBBC Bulungi, a news service, and Bulungi 2 Bulungi, entertainment programming from South Bulungi and other Bulungian countries, on the DSTV platform. In 2003, Bulungi 2 Bulungi was merged with SBBC Bulungi to create a combined service, drawing programming from both sources. Currently SBBC Bulungi broadcasts worldwide, with programming in English, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa, French, Arabic and Twi. The SBBC also "exports" its news bulletins to television channels in other Bulungian countries or television channels catering Bulungian communities outside of the continent, particularly in Eurectipheria and the Sierras.

See also

• Radio in South Bulungi
• Television in South Bulungi