Five community radio stations that lost their licences after failing to renew them on time have been relicensed, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has told Parliament.
MPs were not told how long the stations were off air or how many listeners lost their service. They were also not told why each station missed its deadline.
ICASA representative Fikile Hlongwane told Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies that the five stations had reapplied and met the requirements.
The stations named were Zibonele FM, Kanyamazane FM and Greater Middelburg FM in Mpumalanga, Kingfisher FM in the Eastern Cape and Nkungumathe FM in KwaZulu-Natal.
The Khayelitsha station broadcasts mainly in isiXhosa. It is one of the country’s oldest community stations and first got a licence in 1995.
In July 2022, ICASA ordered it off its frequency. The regulator said its licence had expired on 25 October 2018, and that the station had failed to file a renewal application as required by section 19(2) of the Electronic Communications Act.
The station disputed this. Station manager Mawande Jara said a renewal application had been made six months before the licence expired.
At the time, the station employed 64 people and had 25 learnerships.
After the shutdown, Zibonele could only broadcast online and on DStv. Listeners who relied on an ordinary radio set, and could not afford data, were cut off.
In September 2022, ICASA gave the station a 45-day special events licence to cover Heritage Day. ICASA said then that its standard licence had not been renewed.
Listenership data from June 2023 put Zibonele at about 182,000 listeners a day.
Kanyamazane FM serves the Kanyamazane township near Mbombela. ICASA licensed it in 1998.
In January 2024, the Presidency announced that Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni would unveil new studios at the station, funded by the Media Development and Diversity Agency. It was the first MDDA funding the station had received in 26 years.
Kingfisher FM is a Christian community station in Nelson Mandela Bay. Station manager Michele Lourens has previously said the station operated legally on an ICASA special events licence while its licence application was being processed.
Community radio stations carry local news, public information and programming in languages and areas that commercial broadcasters often ignore.
When a licence lapses, the community loses that service, not just the broadcaster.
The committee discussion did not establish what caused each failure. It also did not establish whether ICASA’s monitoring could have picked up the lapses earlier.
