South African broadcasting carries one of the most concrete institutional traces of the transition from apartheid to democracy. Under apartheid the state broadcaster SABC was a direct instrument of the regime's propaganda and the voice of the black majority had no place on screen. After 1994 the corporation was fundamentally restructured: SABC became a public broadcaster, its governance was placed under an independent board, and it was given a duty to broadcast in all the country's official languages. It now publishes in more than eleven — making it one of the most multilingual public broadcasters in the world and the broadcasting expression of the country's pluralist constitutional order.
Private broadcasting developed after the democratic transition. The country's first rolling news channel, eNCA, is a product of that period. The more recently founded Newzroom Afrika carries particular significance for ownership diversity.
The South African press holds one of the strongest investigative traditions on the continent; journalists played a decisive part in bringing the country's major corruption investigations into public view. Press self-regulation is handled by the industry's own press council.
The country broadcasts in many languages; the channels below publish mainly in English, which makes the South African agenda accessible to an international audience.
Streams are shown from each broadcaster's own official YouTube channel through the YouTube player; the content and all rights belong to those broadcasters. Montegre does not broadcast or retransmit. Live news coverage may contain distressing footage.