A series of four reports by Trevor Philpott
The year 1976 was the year when, at long last, the South Africans got a television service.
For 20 years politicians, church-men and tycoons of the entertainment industry have fought successfully against the introduction of television. They claimed that it would mean no less than the death of the Afrikaans language and the Afrikaaner lifestyle. What kind of service will it be? What effect will it have on their social system? Trevor Philpott has made a series of four films on the new service. This first instalment covers the last days of the pre-television age, the scale of the South African entertainment business and the way South Africans reacted to the arrival of television sets in their homes.