ABSTRACT
This chapter overviews the development of broadcasting beginning in the 1920s right up to the transitional moment of 1990–1994, when it was required to define a vision for a plural democratic society. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was the first institution to undergo racial and cultural transformation towards the new democratic dispensation. The bulk of the material is on the early years of radio broadcasting (1930s–1940s), as it is the period that it less known in the mind of the public. What the research reveals is how in its founding moment the SABC tried to unify the disparate interests of white Afrikaans and English populations through radio broadcasting. In the transitional moment, the SABC attempted to integrate the interests of all its citizens, including Africans, Indians and others. In their unifying of interest, the founding moment and the transitional moment were similar. The transitional moment became so crucial to how we know broadcasting and the SABC today in South Africa.
