Sound Archive

The Sound Archives collects and receives material from all the SABC Public Broadcast Services (PBS) Radio Services of which selected material is catalogued and stored in the various archive repositories across the country.

A small percentage of the collection is donated by former staff or the public, and includes 78 r.p.m. disks, old broadcast tapes, jingles, etc.

The Sound Archives has initiated an oral history project. The project focuses on supplementing the Sound Archive catalogue by including interviews with personalities broadcast by the SABC. In addition, it has established a collection of natural and habitat sounds of Southern Africa.

The SABC Sound Archives preserves material for the following reasons:
1) To preserve SABC broadcasts and raw material as a corporate function;
2) To be of service as a well-organised source of broadcast material to the SABC;
3) To preserve permanently highlights in the history of the development and broadcast patterns of broadcasting in South Africa;
4) To bequeath to future generations an audio-image of South Africa at certain periods as it was portrayed by the SABC;
5) To provide researchers with information and facts on sound carriers that are not available in any other form;
6) To preserve, as part of the National Broadcaster’s function and as far as possible, complete recordings of the South African culture (legends and oral traditions) including a comprehensive set of nature and habitat sounds of South Africa

Languages

The following languages are archived:
English
Afrikaans
isiNdebele
Setswana
SePedi
Venda
Tsonga
isiSwazi
Sesotho
isiZulu
isiXhosa

Contact numbers for all your enquiries and requests:

Music and Ndebele requests
Refiloe Jele
Tel: 011 714 4879.
Email: jeler@sabc.co.za

Afrikaans and English requests
Retha Roux
Tel: 011 714 2772.
Email: rouxr@sabc.co.za

News and Actuality and Sport requests
Bernard Monyai for –
011 714 4881.
Email: monyain@sabc.co.za

Manager: Bennie Jacobs
Tel 011 714 4880
Cell 0832651222
Fax 0117144281
Email jacobsb@sabc.co.za

Contact numbers for ordering material from the Sound Archive collections:
Tel: 011 714 4709
011 714 4681
Email: rpsales@sabc.co.za

Please note that the Sound Archive material is copyright protected
and might not be available.