TV News South Africa

Cape Town's community TV extends its reach

Expanding on its one local transmitter, located on Tygerberg, Cape Town's community television channel, CTV, has started streaming worldwide through the internet, extending its reach from line-of-sight viewers to the world.
Cape Town's community TV extends its reach

"This will enable Capetonians located in other areas to view the station's programme line-up of documentaries, music and talk shows, movies and magazine programmes. Many of which deal with the issues, lifestyles, events and attractions of our city and the Western Cape," says station director Karen Thorne.

"The station has also just started a daily news service which is broadcast at 7.55pm, just before its transmission of the international news channel, Al Jazeera, between 8-9pm."

Substantial growth

A non-profit organisation, it gains income from a combination of grants, donations, sale of airtime and advertising. It reaches a monthly audience of around 1.3 million Capetonians, according figures provided by the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF).

"The station has grown substantially over the past three years and has doubled its income in each year of operation. We are now on a sound financial footing and we are planning for the migration to digital broadcasting because we expect to be carried on a digital multiplex towards the end of 2013.

"We expect the channel to grow significantly and ultimately to extend its broadcast reach to the entire Western Cape region," concludes Thorne.

The feed is available on http://capetowntv.org.

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