 Chapters 6 to 9 of AfriMAP's 2010 Public Broadcasting in Africa (SA County Report) offers a compressive overview the SABC including the relevant legislation, structure, funding, progamming, and perceptions of the public broadcaster. The Report is prepared by Libby Lloyd, Prof Jane Duncan, Jeanette Minnie and Hendrik Bussiek.
6. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC)
1 Legislation
2 Definition of public broadcasting
3 The legal status of the SABC
4 The Board
5 Profile of the SABC
6 Organisation
7 Conclusions and recommendations
7. Funding of the South African Broadcasting Corporation
1 Overview
2 Sources of funding
3 Expenditure
4 Conclusions and recommendations
8. Programming
1 Types of formats on SABC stations
2 Programming/editorial policies and guidelines of the SABC
3 Types of programmes on other broadcasters
4 Analysis of programmes
5 Audience research
6 Feedback and complaints procedures
7 Conclusions and recommendations
9. Perceptions of and expectations towards the SABC
1 Political parties
2 Civil society
3 Employees of the SABC
4 Conclusions and recommendations
CHAPTER SIX: THE SOUTH AFRICAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION (SABC)
The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is by far the largest and most influential broadcaster in South Africa – in terms of reach, size, overall audience figures, number of channels, and share of the advertising market. Nearly 20 million of the 29 million radio listeners in South Africa tune into one of the SABC’s 18 radio stations and SABC’s three free-to-air television channels attract more than 17 million adult viewers each day.
In some areas in South Africa, the SABC is the only source of news and information – and in many others the only media in the community’s home language. As such it plays an important (and special) role in people’s lives. A recent survey of public confidence in key institutions found that the public broadcaster is the second most trusted institution in South Africa – beaten only by churches.
A Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) study (Between TRUST and SCEPTICISM: public confidence in institutions) released in March 2008 showed that the SABC since 2003 was consistently ranked the second most trusted institution – with 72 per cent of those surveyed stating that they trusted or strongly trusted the broadcaster. This compared with churches, which were trusted by 82 per cent of respondents, while 68 per cent of those surveyed expressed confidence in the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and 59 per cent in national government.
At the same time, the Corporation has over the years been dogged by controversies – and has often been the subject of the news rather than just a producer. As media analyst and academic from the University of the Witwatersrand, Tawana Kupe, said at a seminar in 2005:
…The SABC comes across a reluctant and lumbering giant …It seems to be in defensive mode unable to convincingly ride out controversies. Instead controversies often consume its energies.
1. Legislation
1.1 The Constitution
The SABC is not specifically mentioned in the 1996 Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, though freedom of expression is enshrined, including the right to freedom of the media (Section 16). The Constitution also stipulates that an independent broadcasting regulator must be established (section 192).
The clauses related to an independent regulator replaced sections in the Interim Constitution (1993), which specifically referred to media owned by the State. The right to freedom of expression in this earlier version of the Constitution stated that:
All media financed by or under the control of the state shall be regulated in a manner which ensures impartiality and the expression of a diversity of opinion. (Section 15(2))
As noted below, the Broadcasting Act (no 4 of 1999) specifically entrenches the SABC’s independence in order to enhance its right to freedom of expression.
1.2 Broadcasting legislation
The process of transforming the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) from a state broadcaster into a public broadcaster began in the early 1990s following the unbanning of liberation movements, the release of political prisoners by the then ruling National Party and the start of talks between the two opposing sides on a new political order.
The transformation of the Corporation into a public broadcaster was identified as one of the critical precursors for a free and fair election, and thus discussions on this started well before to the first elections in April 1994 – involving civil society as well as political parties. The need to change the SABC was agreed in principle by all sides, not least the liberation movements and the then ruling party, even if for very different reasons: the National Party did not want a new party to assume the control it had held over broadcasting and the African National Congress (ANC) did not want the apartheid government to control broadcasting over elections. In line with this, a publicly nominated SABC Board was appointed in 1993 – (largely) outside of the existing legal framework and through negotiation – a year before the 1994 elections.
Development of public broadcasting, however, is a process and not an event. In the case of the SABC, this involved not only asserting independence from government and establishing accountability to the public (rather than the ruling party), but also attempting to change the authoritarian culture of the broadcaster and redressing the skewed allocation of resources in the Corporation to ensure that the needs of all South Africans were met.
This process began with the appointment of a new board and a new management (led by veteran media activist Zwelakhe Sisulu) and with the establishment within the Corporation of a transformation unit. An intensive programme of training new journalists, production staff and management commenced, with the assistance of a range of international public broadcasters (including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).
The promulgation of the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act (IBA Act) in 1993 further advanced the transformation process. This law emphasised the need for the regulator to conduct a study into the protection and viability of public broadcasting, universal access and South African content – dubbed the Triple Inquiry Report (see chapter 5). This study was finalised in 1995 and debated in Parliament in 1996.
In 1997, Government asserted its right to be involved in developing broadcasting policy (rather than just the regulator) and began reviewing the existing Broadcasting Act (of 1976) and developing what it termed an overarching broadcasting policy. This culminated in the publication of the White Paper on Broadcasting in 1998 and the promulgation of the Broadcasting Act, No 4 of 1999.
This legislation, while dealing with all tiers of broadcasting, predominantly focuses on public broadcasting. Among other things, the Act introduced a Charter for the SABC and provided for the division of the Corporation into public and public commercial wings (purportedly to address funding constraints). The law further provided for the corporatisation of the SABC (the conversion of the organisation into a public company – SABC Ltd).
The SABC – which previously had balked at direct oversight by the regulator stating that, like the then IBA, it was answerable to Parliament – now had to report to the Authority on compliance with its Charter and adhere to new licence conditions determined by the regulator.
The Broadcasting Act was amended in 2002. The amendment further strengthened the Charter and required the SABC to develop editorial policies through a public process.
During 2008 the Department of Communications indicated its intention to review the existing law, with a view to evaluating the need for a separate SABC Act. This review resulted in the release of a Public Service Broadcasting Discussion Document in July 2009 and Public Service Broadcasting Bill in October 2009. The bill does not focus separately on the SABC and instead proposes a number of fundamental policy changes in relation to broadcasting overall (see chapter ten for more information).
As can be seen from the following analysis, obligations relating to public broadcasting are spread through different sections of three laws (the Broadcasting Act, the Electronic Communications Act and the ICASA Act). Sections in the Broadcasting Act dealing with broadcasting in South Africa as a whole, or focusing specifically on the commercial or community sectors, are for example often repeated in the Electronic Communications Act (No 36 of 2005). ICASA policies on broadcasting and the license conditions it specifies for all the SABC’s channels very significantly affect its conduct and operations.
The need for improved law was also emphasised by the fact that the SABC was embroiled in a series of crises throughout 2008 and much of 2009. The roots of what has been dubbed ‘a fiasco’ (dealt with in more detail in the substance of this chapter) go back to late 2007, when African National Congress (ANC) parliamentarians told journalists that they had been forced by government to support the Presidency’s favoured candidates for appointment to the board of the SABC. From then on, newspaper reports on the SABC often read like scripts for soap opera instalments – with intrigues, personal vendettas and power games between board and management, suspension of top personnel (including the GCEO himself) by either side, appeals to the courts and calls for a vote of no confidence against the board as a whole in Parliament.
This led to the Minister of Communications calling for a review of the law, including the board appointment process and a clear delimitation of functions between board and management, and ruling party MPs proposing a Members’ Bill to give them stronger powers to remove the board as a whole (and not just individual members). The Broadcasting Amendment Bill – giving Parliament the powers to recommend the removal of the whole Board – was introduced into Parliament in July 2008, and brought into effect in March 2009. The board was removed shortly after and replaced by an interim board (generally credited with having brought much needed stability to the institution and drawing up a financial plan to overcome its serious debt burden). A new permanent board was elected by Parliament and appointed by the President at the end of 2009.
2. Definition of public broadcasting
The Broadcasting Act defines public broadcasting as:
• Any broadcasting service provided by the South African Broadcasting Corporation;
• A broadcasting service provided by any other statutory body; or
• A broadcasting service provided by a person who receives his or her revenue, either wholly or partly, from licence fees levied in relation to sound radio sets and in relation to television sets, or from the State, and must include a commercially operated broadcasting service …
This is a technical definition, and the distinctive role for public broadcasting in South Africa is detailed rather in the SABC’s Charter. The definition could be strengthened by reference to the Charter and/or other relevant sections of the law. It is also unclear why it would have been necessary in the definition to stipulate the inclusion of a commercial division.
2.1 The Charter and Mandate
Section 6 of the Broadcasting Act (as amended) sets out the Charter of the SABC, whilst Section 7 outlines the objectives of the broadcaster. Other responsibilities relating to specific obligations of the different divisions of the SABC (public and public commercial) are contained in a range of different sections. Any new legislation would be strengthened through collating all such requirements into a distinct remit.
Charter
Section 6(1) compels the SABC to abide by the Charter, whilst Section 6(2) impels ICASA to monitor and “enforce compliance” with the Charter.
While there has been general agreement that the introduction of a Charter strengthens public broadcasting by clearly outlining its mandate, some critics have pointed out that the current remit is not uniquely South African but rather based substantially on mandates for public broadcasters in other countries. The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), for example, has argued that ten of the 16 objectives for the SABC are “taken virtually verbatim from the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Charter”.
As societal needs change, it would be worth considering that any new law should call for a regular review of the Charter. This could also provide a forum for ongoing public involvement in defining exactly what public broadcasting means in South Africa.
The different requirements of the Charter are:
• Section 6(3) describes the status of the SABC – emphasising the independence of the Corporation and the right to freedom of expression:
In terms of this Charter, the Corporation, in pursuit of its objectives, and in the exercise of its powers, enjoys freedom of expression and journalistic, creative and programming independence as enshrined in the Constitution.
Thus, whilst the SABC is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution of South Africa, its law gives it constitutional protection in relation to its core business – programming.
• Sub-section 4 states that:
The Corporation must encourage the development of South African expression by providing, in South African official languages, a wide range of programming that –
(a) reflects South African attitudes, opinions, ideas, values and artistic creativity;
(b) displays South African talent in education and entertainment programmes;
(c) provides a plurality of views and a variety of news, information and analysis from a South African point of view;
(d) advances the national and public interest.
• Section 6(5) requires the Board of the SABC to develop a range of policies through a process of public consultation. These include a news policy, a programming policy, a local content policy, an educational programming policy, a policy on universal service, a language policy and a religious policy. The policies, according to legislation, have to be updated regularly through a public process and be submitted to the regulator.
The Act is not clear on what the regulator’s role is in regard to the policies. It merely stipulates that the SABC Board lodge such policies with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) but does not spell out whether the regulator has to monitor compliance with these, or incorporate them into licence conditions. It should be highlighted though that in any case this was an improvement on the original Bill, which proposed that such policies should be submitted to the Minister of Communications. There was an outcry about the impact of this on the independence of the SABC, and Parliament rejected the proposal.
• A distinction is made in the Act between the editorial policies and “a Code of Practice”. Section 6(8) of the legislation states that the SABC must also develop a Code of Practice that ensures the Corporation and its personnel comply with:
• the constitutional principle of equality;
• the equitable treatment of all segments of the South African population;
• the constitutional requirement of equitable treatment of all South African official languages;
• the rights of all South Africans to receive and impart information and ideas;
• the mandate to provide for a wide range of audience interests, beliefs and perspectives; and
• a high standard of accuracy, fairness and impartiality in news and programmes that deal with matters of public interest.
2.2 Objectives
Section 8 of the Act outlines the “objectives” of the SABC. This section includes both mandatory obligations and powers of the Corporation (for example the power to set up archives and acquire intellectual property rights). Separating the two and ensuring all objectives are given equal weight by collating them into a specific section could strengthen the mandate.
Key responsibilities for the SABC outlined in this section are the following:
• It must make its services available throughout South Africa (Sec 8(a)).
• It must provide sound and television services and programmes that educate, inform and entertain (Sec 8(b) and (d)).
• It must be responsive to the needs of all South Africans “including the needs of the deaf and the blind and account on how to meet those needs” (Sec 8(e)).
• The SABC must “nurture South African talent and train people in production skills” (Sec 8(n)).
2.3 Responsibilities specific to public or commercial wings
As mentioned above, the SABC is, in terms of legislation, divided into a public and a public commercial division. The legislation imposes specific obligations on the public wing of the Corporation.
Television licence fees paid by the public can only be allocated to the public division and the Act specifies that there must be an “arms length commercial arrangement” between the public and commercial wings of the SABC. This is emphasised in a range of sections in the Act, including Sec 8A(15)(a) and Section 9(2) which state that the two divisions must be administered and accounted for separately and that assets must be registered with either the public or commercial division and use of such assets by the other wing must be accounted for.
The responsibilities of the public wing are outlined in Section 10 of the Act, which states that the public stations and channels must:
• Make services available to South Africans in all the official languages;
• Reflect both the unity and diverse cultural and linguistic of South Africa and all its cultures and regions to audiences;
• Strive to be of high quality in all the languages served;
• Provide significant news and current affairs programming which meets the highest standards of journalism, as well as fair and unbiased coverage, impartiality, balance, and independence from government, commercial and other interests;
• Include significant amounts of educational programming, both curriculum based and informal educative topics from a wide range of social, political and economic issues, including, but not limited to, human rights, health, early childhood development, agriculture, culture, religion, justice and commerce and contributing to a shared South African consciousness and identity;
• Enrich the cultural heritage of South Africa by providing support for traditional and contemporary artistic expression;
• Strive to offer a broad range of services targeting, particularly, children, women, the youth and the disabled;
• Include programmes made by the Corporation as well as those commissioned from the independent production sector; and
• Include national sports programming as well as developmental and minority sports.
Commercial services are dealt with in Section 11 and have to comply with the same legal and regulatory standards of privately owned commercial services whilst adhering to “the values of the public broadcasting service in the provision of programmes and service”.
In terms of Section 10(3) and 11(1), the SABC submits budgets and business plans for the public division and the commercial division separately to the Minister.
3. The legal status of the SABC
As outlined previously, the Broadcasting Act also provided for the conversion of the SABC into a “public company incorporated in terms of the Company Act, to be known as the South African Broadcasting Corporation Limited”. The SABC was converted into a public company in 2004.
The law emphasises that the State is the sole shareholder of the SABC – and does not stipulate (as argued during parliamentary hearings into the Bill) that this is on behalf of the public. In line with this, the Minister of Communications determines the memorandum and articles of association and there is no injunction for public involvement in the determination of these.
The corporate model was linked to the division of the SABC into the public and public commercial divisions. According to the White Paper and the Broadcasting Act, this division was aimed at ensuring financial viability, as the commercial wing would have fewer obligations (similar to those of private broadcasters) and therefore supposedly be able to maximise profits, which would be used to cross-subsidise the public wing. The effectiveness of this will be dealt with in chapter 7 of this report.
The corporatisation of the SABC has been criticised. At the time of discussion of the Bill in Parliament, both the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) voiced their objections and expressed the fear that this was a precursor to the privatisation of sections of the public broadcaster (the commercial division or parts of it).
The SABC in terms of the Broadcasting Act (and in line with provisions in the Public Finance Management Act - PFMA) is listed as a Schedule 2 public entity (“Major National Public Entities’”) rather than a constitutional institution (a body established by the constitution). According to Treasury guidelines the boards of public entities are appointed by the executive of government rather than the legislature.
The SABC, given the requirements of independence and legislative rather than executive oversight as stipulated by law, should be defined as a constitutional institution rather than a public entity.
3.1 Role of ‘shareholder’
The role of the Minister (on behalf of the State as shareholder) is outlined in the Memorandum and Articles of Association (‘the Articles’). It is further elaborated on in the annually signed Shareholder Compact.
Memorandum and Articles of Association
The Articles, in line with company law, set out the relationship between the SABC and its shareholder (the Minister of Communications on behalf of the Government). As noted above, the Minister of Communications has determined the Articles, and there has been no public involvement in this process. The document moreover is not easily accessible, as it is not, for example, posted on the web sites of either the Department of Communications or the SABC.
Before dealing with the specifics of the SABC Articles of Association, it is important to highlight that the Articles, as they are currently written, do not in any way recognise the special nature of SABC as an institution set up by law – or its right to independence. They rather just import requirements and rights of private companies onto the SABC – with no recognition, for example, that the SABC’s board represents the public of South Africa rather than the shareholder (directors in commercial companies, for example, are direct nominees of the individual shareholder/s and thus shareholders have the right to give them instructions).
Given this, a thorough legal analysis is necessary to determine whether or not company law in South Africa is appropriate for bodies set up by law, and, if so, how some of its requirements can be adapted to reflect the realities of bodies such as the SABC.
The Articles of the SABC state the main business of the SABC - broadcasting to the public - and note that the Corporation cannot, for example, dispose of any significant part of the SABC or wind up the broadcaster without permission from the Ministers of Communications and Finance. They further outline the requirements of the Public Finance Management Act, No 1 of 1999 (PFMA) and stipulate that the Board “controls the affairs of the Corporation”, in line with relevant legislation. (Article 12.1)
The Articles do not say that the State holds the shares on behalf of the public of South Africa. Whilst reference is made to the Broadcasting Act, there is no word at all on the “journalistic, creative and programming independence” of the SABC.
Stakeholders have raised major concerns about the potential for these Articles to entrench a measure of state control of the SABC.
Critically, one of the key clauses effectively gives the Minister the right to determine the appointments of the three executive members of the Board - the Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Chief Operating Officer (COO). Article 11.1.2 states:
The non-executive Directors shall, after they have conducted interviews and compiled a short list for preferred candidates, recommend to … (the Minister) … the appointment of the preferred candidate to fill any position as the executive Directors of the Corporation.
The Articles further require that the Minister approve of the CEO’s employment contract (Article 19.1(a)) and the remuneration of all three executive board members (Article 11.4.2).This is particularly concerning given the designation of the CEO as Editor-in-Chief (see below) – resulting in the Minister being effectively responsible for appointing the editor of the SABC, in contradiction with the stipulation in the Charter that the SABC shall have journalistic independence.
Such clauses appear to contravene the legally enshrined independence of the SABC and should be challenged accordingly. If necessary, it would be of value to raise this with the Constitutional Court for its judgement in the matter.
In addition, the clauses potentially breach the labour and common law principle that ‘those that hear decide’.
In an interview on 12 June 2008, the then Chairperson of the Board, Khanyisiwe Mkonza, said that concerns had been raised in this regard:
I know there have been criticism of this and suggestions that it disempowers us as the board. The board does, however, get involved in the process by recruiting and doing the short-listing and interviewing. The board then has to make a recommendation to the Minister and motivate why we are suggesting a particular candidate. In this way the Minister would not consider a candidate not preferred by the board anyway.
South Africa is not necessarily completely unique in this involvement (of the government) and maybe the exception here is the appointment of all top three executive directors. This argument though is linked to the debate around having senior management as members of the board. This is one part of the Broadcasting Act that would have to be reconsidered.
It is worth noting though that consultation with government before appointing executive management had been the practice even before finalisation of the Articles – as shown by the following excerpt from minutes of a Parliamentary meeting in 2000 with the SABC:
Ms Vos (IFP) asked about the vacancies in the SABC and about recruitment. She referred to Dr Maphai's (then Board Chairperson) earlier statement that a list of candidates for the senior positions had to be submitted to Cabinet for approval. She asked why this had to be done when the SABC was not a state broadcaster.
Reply: Dr Maphai replied that the Broadcasting Act did not address the matter. In terms of the corporate governance of parastatals they were required to get Cabinet's approval.
Ms Vos wondered if the Board did not have a problem with this in terms of their independence. What would happen if Cabinet rejected a proposal that the Board made?
Reply: Dr Maphai replied that they would have no choice but to abide by Cabinet's decision but they hoped that it would never come to such a situation.
Other articles that potentially limit the SABC’s autonomy and/or could be seen as contrary to the Broadcasting Act/PFMA include:
• Article 13 which deals with “vacation of office” of Board members. These clauses go further than the removal clauses in the Act (to be dealt with below);
• Sections dealing with the development of a three-year strategic plan (corporate plan) and submission of the annual report and financial statements to the Minister with no mention of the oversight role of the legislature in this regard (Articles 14.2.1, Article 32). The clauses on the corporate plan/business plan (the two terms are used interchangeably in the document) state that the SABC must “consider” any comments on the plans made by the Minister/State.
• A requirement that the SABC send the Minister monthly management accounts (Article 26.4), whilst Treasury Regulations issued in terms of the PFMA only require quarterly reporting by public entities.
Shareholder compact
In terms of Treasury regulations, all public entities listed in Schedule 2 of the PFMA have to sign an annual shareholder compact with the executive authority (Minister).
If, as suggested above, the SABC were listed as a constitutional institution in terms of the PFMA it would not be required to enter into such an agreement. Constitutional institutions are governed by specific Treasury Regulations giving them administrative independence from the executive of government in recognition of their status. The Broadcasting Act recognises that the SABC is overseen and accountable to Parliament rather than the executive.
By June 2008 the Minister had not signed the compact with the SABC for the year ending March 2008. The previous annual compact according to the SABC 2007 Annual Report was also not signed. According to the SABC 2008 Annual Report, the shareholder compact was still not signed as it was dependent on the finalisation of a Corporate Plan, the contents of which were under discussion with Treasury and the Department of Communications. The 2009 Annual Report was silent on the matter.
According to the Treasury regulations, a shareholder compact “must document the mandated key performance measures and indicators to be attained by the public entity as agreed between the accounting authority and the executive authority”. (Note that this ignores Parliament’s role in the finalisation of strategies for the SABC).
Key points in the 2007/2008 Compact confirm the assertion that it is inappropriate (and possibly ultra vires) for the SABC to be required to enter into such an agreement with the Minister:
• In outlining the relationship between the parties the compact says that each party should have “sufficient freedom of action…to enable … them to achieve their … objectives and to carry out their … functions”, but also states that the Shareholder is accountable to Parliament whilst the Board is accountable to the Shareholder “for compliance with the obligations imposed on it in terms of the PFMA”. This ignores the role of Parliament.
• The compact “acknowledges” the role of ICASA in regulating the SABC, and states that the Shareholder will “consult” the regulator on any matter relevant to the applicable framework of the SABC. This does not appear to sufficiently recognise ICASA’s independence.
• The compact states that if the “Shareholder intends to issue recommendations, policy directives or instructions that while not being contrary to the objectives of the relevant applicable framework of the SABC, will impact on the Corporate Plan” the Minister must “give sufficient notice of the new or additional requirements”. The SABC must then give an amended corporate plan to the Minister within 14 days for her consideration and “the SABC shall abide by the decision of the Shareholder”. If the SABC refuses to approve the amended plan, this must be noted but the agreement states that the SABC must “still implement the Shareholder’s decision or instruction”.
These clauses are alarming and ignore the status given to the SABC in the Broadcasting Act. They also appear to be in breach of clauses of the Electronic Communications Act, which outline a public process for the development of any national policy by government
4. The Board
The SABC is governed by a Board made up of 12 non-executive members and three executive members (the CEO, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) “or their equivalents”) (Sec 12 Broadcasting Act).
Nine members of the Board, including either the Chairperson or his/her deputy, constitute a quorum of the Board. (Sec 13(10) Broadcasting Act).
Potential problems/gaps in the legislation around composition of the Board became evident in a 2008 court case between the CEO and the Board over his suspension from duties for alleged non-performance.
The Court found that the meeting of the Board where the decision to suspend him had been taken was invalid, as executive members had not been informed timeously in writing of the meeting as required by the law. As it is clearly necessary for executive members to be absent from any meetings dealing with, for example, their performance or their conditions of employment, the legislation should be amended either to exclude management from membership of the Board, or to provide for non-executive meetings in certain circumstances. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act for example stipulates that the managing director (although a full member of the board) should not be present at certain meetings.
4.1 Appointment
The President, on the “advice” of Parliament, appoints non-executive members of the Board after a process of public nomination.
The legislation specifies that the process adopted by Parliament must:
• ensure participation by the public in the process,
• be fair and transparent, and
• that the legislature must publish its shortlist of candidates to be interviewed (Sec 13 (2)).
In practice, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications has handled this process on behalf of the National Assembly. It has published an advertisement in newspapers calling for nominations. The short-listing, interviewing and decision-making meetings are all public Recommendations are then forwarded to the National Assembly for approval before being submitted to the President.
The President decides on the chairperson and deputy chairperson from amongst those recommended by the legislature (Sec13 (3) Broadcasting Act) and sets the term of office for members, though the Act states this may not exceed five years. Board members can serve a maximum of two terms.
The Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee established to review the independence and oversight of constitutional entities recommended in its report that Parliament and not the President should decide on who would chair such bodies. Whilst the Committee did not include the SABC in its detailed review of such institutions, it does highlight in its appendices that the SABC (amongst other entities) is also given Constitutional protection. Its recommendations should be considered in any drafting of new policies and laws.
Unlike in the case of governing bodies established subsequently, the Act does not provide for continuity, and the terms of all Board members end concurrently. The ICASA Council for example has overlapping terms so that not all councillors leave at the same time.
The Act makes no mention of appointment of executive members of the Board (CEO, COO and CFO). The practice outlined in the Memorandum and Articles of Association is thus not provided for in legislation. In any amendment of the legislation, a clause stipulating that the Board is solely responsible for appointment of the executive management should be inserted.
The appointment process came under scrutiny in the second half of 2007 after members of the ruling party in the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee reportedly complained about being “ordered” by the ANC headquarters whom to select for the board. The newspaper article further revealed that a staff member in the Presidency had nominated one of the new board members. The country’s major trade union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), together with the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) considered challenging the appointment process in court, but decided not to proceed as they were unable to persuade key protagonists to provide affidavits proving political interference.
As a result of the reports of political and government interference in the board appointment process, alongside concerns about public battles between the board and management of the SABC, there were calls for a review of the legislation. Minister of Communications, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, endorsed the need for this in her 2008 budget speech:
It is evident that both the Executive and Parliament will have to review the legislation and appointing processes to ascertain whether this legislation, drawn up at a particular historical time, is relevant for our current historical conjuncture.
The powers given to the appointing authority, the processes of appointing and removing board members, the Public Broadcaster's Charter, and the role of the executive and/or Parliament, clearly need reviewing, without sacrificing the broadcaster's independence but clarifying the nature, content and form of that independence.
Others have suggested alternative procedures. Commenting in the Mail & Guardian newspaper, Wits University journalism professor Anton Harber, for example, said:
Parliament may not be the best way to select a board. The best way I have heard of is the way the first SABC board was selected … by a panel of ‘the good and greatest’ chaired by a judge. We need to remove it from party politics.
Ex editor and journalist, Allister Sparks, in a column in the Business Day went further and detailed suggestions for the composition of what he called an Independent Broadcasting Commission, established not only to appoint SABC board members but also, for example, councillors on the regulator:
The precise composition of such a commission should be a matter for public discussion, but to give the gist of my proposal let me suggest the following: a body of 13, chaired by a retired Constitutional Court judge; two practising editors nominated by the South African National Editors’ Forum; two teachers of journalism; one representative of the filmmaking industry; the minister of broadcasting; four MPs, at least two representing opposition parties; and two trade unionists.
4.2 Criteria for appointment
Section 13(4) of the Broadcasting Act sets out the criteria for the appointment of non-executive members of the Board. It states that Board members when viewed collectively must:
• be persons suited to serve on the Board by virtue of their qualifications, expertise and experience in the fields of broadcasting policy and technology, broadcasting regulation, media law, frequency planning, business practice and finance, marketing, journalism, entertainment and education, social and labour issues;
• be persons who are committed to fairness, freedom of expression, the right of the public to be informed, and openness and accountability on the part of those holding public office;
• represent a broad cross-section of the population of South Africa; (and)
• be persons who are committed to the objects and principles as enunciated in the Charter.
The first clause of this Section is vague and has led to questions being asked about whether or not, for example, a particular Board does indeed include all the identified expertise or experience.
The clause sets out a finite list of skills required (rather than indicating that the Board should include certain expertise), thus raising questions about why, for example, an understanding of gender or language issues in South Africa would not enhance the Board. It requires on one hand for the Board to include people with specific qualifications in an area such as frequency planning (though it is unclear why the Board would need qualifications in this area, rather than an understanding of universal access), whilst emphasising the need for qualifications and experience in broad areas such as social and labour issues (but not development, for example).
4.3 Disqualification
The clauses dealing with disqualification of Board members are vague – and therefore do not necessarily safeguard the SABC from potential conflicts of interest.
Whilst it is clearly stated that only citizens of South Africa can be appointed, and that no person who has been convicted and sentenced for a crime, or found guilty of corruption or dishonesty can sit on the governing structure, the legislation merely requires disclosure of potential conflicts. Section 17 of the relevant legislation states that a person cannot be appointed unless “the necessary disclosure has been made”. Disclosures specified relate to financial or other involvement in the broadcasting, telecommunications and print media industries. Unlike the ICASA Act, the Broadcasting Act does not prohibit public officials or party political office bearers from sitting on the Board. Board members have to recuse themselves from discussions on any matter if they have a conflict of interest.
It is critical that the Board includes people with experience of broadcasting and a commitment to public broadcasting, and thus it would be foolhardy to exclude all those involved in media or communication. However, the legislation could be strengthened through defining clearly who should be precluded from participating in order to protect the SABC from perceptions or accusations of bias (either political or economic).
Concerns in this regard have previously been raised:
• Ex Board member Cecil Msomi was, while still serving on the SABC, employed as the chief spokesperson of the Premier in KwaZulu Natal – sparking allegations by opposition parties of a conflict of interest. Msomi argued that he was not precluded from sitting on the Board in terms of the legislation. However, when he sought reappointment towards the end of 2007, Parliament declined to appoint him after raising concern in his interview about his position in government.
• New Board member, Bheki Khumalo, was in 2008 appointed on a contract to provide communication services to one of the government Ministries. He argued that this was only a short-term consultancy and therefore did not affect his membership of the Board. However, according to newspapers, the ANC whip in the parliamentary communications committee disputed this. Khotso Khumalo reportedly stated that there is a potential for a conflict of interest as the Board member could “influence or be perceived as influencing coverage of the (Department) and the ministry”.
• Concerns were also raised in the media about the participation of a previous chairperson of the SABC, Eddie Funde, in a technology company. The Financial Mail for example stated in an editorial: “It cannot be right that Funde and Mpofu (then CEO of the SABC) have commercial interests in technology companies while being in positions to determine what new technology will be suitable for the SABC”.
4.4 Removal
The clauses on removal of members of the board were extremely vague in the Broadcasting Act of 1999 and made it difficult to ensure accountability of the board. According to the legislation, board members could be removed by the “appointing body” for “misconduct or inability to perform his or her duties efficiently after due inquiry and upon recommendation of the Board”. The Act did not define what would constitute misconduct or inability to perform efficiently. It further did not clearly define the term ”appointing body”, which could arguably refer to both the President and Parliament. Further confusion was brought by the condition that a removal could only be on the board’s recommendation – making it impossible, for example, for Parliament to insist on the resignation or removal of a board member who, after appointment, joins the public service, if the board itself perceives no conflict over this.
As mentioned above, the Articles of Association also deal with removal from office. Whilst the clauses in the Articles seem rather to define what would constitute “misconduct or inability to perform his or her duties efficiently”, and do not seem to introduce new motives for removal, it is inappropriate that these should be expanded on in the Articles of Association of a body set up by law (rather than a company). The Articles state that a member of the Board will “cease to hold office” if:
• She or he misses three consecutive meetings of the Board without leave;
• She or he “knowingly is interested in any contract or proposed contract with the Corporation and fails to declare his or her interest as required by the Broadcasting Act”; and
• If her or his estate is sequestrated.
The unworkability of these clauses came under the spotlight in 2008. In April, the ruling party members of the Portfolio Committee on Communications in Parliament passed a “vote of no confidence” in the entire board of the SABC. Minutes of the meeting state that the ANC said it “was convinced that the Board was not in a position to execute its fiduciary responsibilities” following concerns about an apparent rift between the Board and SABC management. ANC members of the Committee had earlier stated in the media that they wished certain members of the board would resign. As the board had been in office for about four months only at the time of the vote, it seemed premature to take such a hard line, and the move was attributed rather to political battles within the ruling party. The decision by Committee members was noted by the full National Assembly rather than adopted – presumably because the implications of such a declaration were unclear.
The process of amending the Broadcasting Act to give Parliament the powers to recommend the removal of the board was then initiated. The resulting Act retained the original grounds for removing the board, but in addition gave the appointing body the powers to remove a board member after due enquiry and a finding calling for removal by the National Assembly. The grounds for removal are failure to disclose a conflict of interest (which brought this provision into line with those of the Chapter Nine institutions), failure to discharge fiduciary duties, failure to adhere to the Charter, and failure to carry out the duties outlined in the Act. The Act also provides for the suspension of board members during an enquiry, and the appointment of an interim board. The Act also retains the definition of “appointing body” as referring to the President. In the first version of the bill, the “appointing body” was meant to be the President in consultation with the Speaker of the National Assembly; however, the ANC in the Portfolio Committee backed down on this proposed amendment after opposition parties objected to its implications for the separation of powers between the legislature and the executive.
4.5 Roles and responsibilities
The Board, in terms of the Broadcasting Act, “controls the affairs of the Corporation” and is specifically instructed to protect the freedom of expression of the SABC and its journalistic, creative and programming independence. It is entrusted with compliance with the Charter and ensuring the broadcaster meets the objectives for public broadcasting in South Africa. In terms of Section 6 of the Act, the Board must also determine a range of editorial policies for the SABC. These are developed through a public process and subject to regular review.
As the SABC is listed as a public entity, the Board is the accounting authority of the SABC and thus responsible for financial management in terms of the Public Finance Management Act, No 1 of 1999 (PFMA) under the guidance of the “designated accounting officer” (the Director General of the Department of Communications). This is notably different from constitutional institutions such as ICASA, which is treated as a Government Department and thus has its own accounting officer (the CEO).
Treasury regulations further define the “executive authority” of a constitutional body as the chairperson of the board of such an institution, rather than the relevant Minister. In practice this means that whilst, for example, a constitutional entity has to submit quarterly financial reports to its board who submits these to Treasury, the SABC would provide such reports to these bodies through the “designated accounting officer” (the Director General of the Department of Communications). The arrangement for constitutional bodies reinforces perceptions of independence from government officials.
In terms of the Broadcasting Act (Sec 10(4)), the Board is responsible for ensuring that annual reports, including audited financial statements, are submitted to the Minister of Communications for tabling in Parliament. Whilst the Minister in this instance appears to act as a conduit as the SABC itself has to report to Parliament on the annual report and financial statements, that role could be perceived as limiting independence and the SABC should be charged with submitting its annual report to Parliament itself through the Speaker of the House.
The legislation provides for an Executive Committee (which is accountable to the Board and responsible for administration) made up of the three executive members of the Board and up to 11 others.
The distinction between oversight and operations is sometimes a fine one, and can be a source of conflict between boards and management. It is necessary for a board to determine strategies and ensure their efficient and effective implementation, whilst not compromising its oversight role by being too involved in operational decisions.
Different boards of the SABC have in the past been accused of meddling in management, though it appears there has not been an in-depth evaluation of the validity of such assertions. The number of Board meetings held however could indicate an over-involvement of the governance structure in operations. According to the 2006/2007 annual report, there were 46 meetings of the Board and its sub-committees during the financial year. This compares with media company Naspers (a multi-national company including print, subscription television and internet divisions), which held 15 board and sub-committee meetings in 2006 according to the company’s annual report for that year. According to the 2007/2008 annual report, the number of meetings increased to 50 (including sub-committee meetings).
Whilst the SABC has approved a Board Charter and a delegation of authority framework (outlining for example that the CEO can only approve spending up to R15 million), the distinction between strategy and implementation is not always clear, with conflict emerging between the board and senior management over these issues in 2008.
Obviously legislation would be strengthened by outlining more clearly the role of the board versus that of management. It is also evident that the blurring of the different roles is exacerbated by making the board the accounting authority (rather than declaring that the CEO should be the accounting officer). This determination gives the board particular financial responsibilities and makes them directly accountable for any mismanagement. Constitutional entities however (as noted earlier) have their own accounting officer (normally the CEO of the institution).
4.6 Sub-committees
The Act stipulates that the Board must establish a public service sub-committee as well as a commercial service sub-committee – presumably to ensure separate administration of the two divisions. These sub-committees are responsible for reporting on the achievements of the two divisions of their mandate/s and operational plans (Sec 14(12)(a)).
No other sub-committees are mandatory, and the Board can decide on establishment as necessary. According to the 2008/2009 annual report, the SABC Board has established nine other committees including an audit committee, finance committee, news committee, risk committee, technology committee, human resources committee, remuneration committee, 2010 committee (FIFA World Cup) and procurement committee.
4.7 Oversight
The Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee to review constitutional and related institutions explored the nature of oversight of such entities. Its findings are pertinent when reviewing institutional structures of the SABC given the specific protection of its editorial and programming independence in line with the Constitution.
The Committee noted that oversight is critical to ensuring that any public institution fulfils its legislative mandate effectively but that “due consideration must be given to ensure that the oversight role … and mechanisms … do not infringe on …independence”. Citing various Constitutional Court judgements on the issue of independence, the report stresses that a “sharp distinction” needs to be drawn between such institutions and the Executive (i.e. Cabinet members or public officials). Parliament, it notes, should be responsible for such oversight.
As pointed out previously, government is the sole shareholder of the SABC. The relationship between the shareholder and the broadcaster is therefore governed not only by the Act, but also by the Memorandum and Articles of Association. Certain clauses of the Articles give the Minister a role in the administration of the broadcaster, and thus potentially impinge on the SABC’s operational independence.
In terms of the Broadcasting Act and the Public Finance Management Act the SABC Board is accountable to Parliament (as the appointing body) as well as to the regulator, ICASA. The legislation further specifies certain powers for the Minister of Communications.
ICASA is responsible for issuing the SABC’s licence conditions and thus its oversight role is mainly to monitor the Corporation’s compliance with these. In addition, the regulator must monitor and ensure compliance by the SABC with its Charter. The editorial policies of the broadcaster also have to be lodged with ICASA.
SABC presents its three-year plan and annual budget for approval to Parliament. The Portfolio Committee on Communications holds hearings to discuss plans and budgets, which fall under the Department of Communications. The SABC then accounts to Parliament on meeting its mandate and expenditure of budget allocations. However, the Corporation does not submit its annual report and audited financial statements to Parliament directly but through the Minister, who has to table these within seven days of receiving them if Parliament is in session, or within seven days of Parliament reconvening if it is not in session (Sec 28 Broadcasting Act).
While the legislation asserts the SABC’s independence from political, commercial and other pressures, the Broadcasting Act also ascribes a number of other roles to the Minister:
• The Minister determines the Memorandum and Articles of Association for submission to the Registrar of Companies (Sec 8A(2));
• The Minister sets the television licence fees (Sec 40) by regulation;
• The Corporation must draw up financial regulations for approval by the Minister after consultation with the Minister of Finance (Sec 18);
• The Minister has to approve of investments of any surplus of the SABC (Sec 18(5));
• The Minister has to approve of the extent of the subsidy of the public division by the commercial wing, on the recommendation of the Board (Sec 11(d)).
It is important in this context to highlight that the Constitutional Court has ruled on the issue of independence of institutions and their funding. In a 1999 judgement (New National Party vs Government of the Republic of South Africa and Others), the Court found that independence does not mean that institutions can set their own budgets but that it is for Parliament and not the executive arm of government to provide for funding “reasonably sufficient” to enable such entities to fulfil their mandates.
In light of such findings, any review of the law will have to evaluate whether or not such roles of the Minister in any way limit, or can be perceived to infringe on, the SABC’s “journalistic, creative and programming independence” as required by Section 6(3) of the Broadcasting Act.
Perhaps though what is potentially more problematic, as it may be difficult to prove, is the way a board interprets its relationship with and obligations to government versus its responsibility to ensure independence and to serve and represent the public. As this is not detailed in any public documents, this may vary from board to board.
It is concerning, for example, that any board of the SABC should have consented to the clauses outlined above contained in the Shareholder Compact. Other issues also emerged during the course of 2008. In court papers challenging his suspension, Group CEO Dali Mpofu alleged that the action taken against him by the board was as a result of an instruction from the Minister in the Presidency, Essop Pahad, to “get rid of the CEO”. After months of legal tussling, Mpofu won his reinstatement in June 2009, although his allegations of political interference were never proved in court. Mpofu has since reached a settlement with the SABC and left the employ of the broadcaster.
There were at the time – repeated though unsubstantiated - allegations that the 2008 SABC Board members were allied to the government (led by President Thabo Mbeki), whilst some senior managers were supportive rather of the ruling party (headed by ANC President Jacob Zuma who defeated Mbeki in party elections in December 2007), and that conflict at the broadcaster was based on such divisions. Following the politically charged controversies around this board and its eventual removal, there have been no consistent allegations of political bias levelled against the interim board, which has gone quietly and efficiently about addressing the multiplicity of problems at the broadcaster.
However, the interim board attracted controversy in its last days in December 2009, when it appointed a new CEO, former Chief Operating Officer Solly Mokoetle. According to a newspaper report, members of the new SABC Board objected to having this choice imposed on them and asked why it should not have been their responsibility to appoint the CEO who will work under their supervision.
4.8 Accountability and transparency
Members of the public can submit complaints about non-compliance with the licence conditions or Charter to ICASA for further investigation. The SABC also has to draft its editorial policies through public consultation, and ICASA procedures encourage and facilitate public involvement in the finalisation of licence conditions.
Whilst such mechanisms do provide for public participation and (to some degree) oversight by the public of the public broadcaster, the legislation does not detail mandatory mechanisms to ensure that the SABC consults listeners and viewers or is directly accountable to them.
The SABC itself conducts regular research and analysis into listener and viewer needs and responses to programmes. Its Editorial Code furthermore lists transparency as one of the core editorial values, stating that the “SABC ensures that the principles of honesty, openness and transparency are core to every aspect of its relationships with shareholder, stakeholders, suppliers and the public” (though the order of listing these relationships is possibly instructive).
Despite this commitment, the SABC has been accused of covering up and hiding issues from the public. It refused, for example, in 2006 to release the full findings of an internal Commission of Inquiry into alleged blacklisting by the SABC of commentators and tried (unsuccessfully) to interdict the Mail & Guardian from placing a leaked copy of the report on its web-site.
This, amongst other things, has prompted calls for specific mechanisms to be put in place to ensure accountability to the public. The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), for example, in a Memorandum for SABC Management submitted in 2006 demanded that the “SABC must work with our organisations to establish forums for regular consultation of our communities by the SABC. This will allow for our communities to be consulted and for the SABC to be able to fulfil its objective of citizenship empowerment”.
There are several possible mechanisms to ensure more transparency and accountability to the public. The British Broadcasting Corporation’s 2006 Royal Charter and Agreement, for example, have put in place specific measures:
• The Charter specifically states that the BBC’s governance structure (the Trust) is accountable to licence fee payers.
• The document specifies that the Trust must “carefully and appropriately assess the views of licence fee payers”. The Charter states that a protocol for public engagement must be developed through a consultative process which must, amongst other things, detail how the Trust will “actively seek the views of, and engage with, licence fee payers”.
• The Charter sets out six Public Purpose Remits and the Trust is required annually to publicly outline what measures it proposes taking to meet these Remits and how it will measure and assess performance.
• Before any significant changes are made to any service (or a new service is introduced) a Public Value Test must be conducted. This includes an assessment of the public value of the change and a market impact study – the results of which must be published.
• There are also specific requirements on transparency and openness that state that the Trust must ensure “that the principal points of its proceedings and the reasons and key considerations behind important decisions … are made public”.
• In addition the Trust has to establish Audience Councils to ensure that “the diverse perspectives of licence fee payers” are brought to bear on the work of the BBC. The Charter specifies that four such audience councils must be established in the different geographical areas the broadcaster covers and that the purpose of these bodies is to “engage with licence fee payers”. The Trust has to consult with the Councils.
• The BBC has also previously been bound by certain formats for reporting to the public. It has been required to make an annual public statement of account setting out, amongst other things, how it has met its objectives, details of research and consultation undertaken and the amount of money spent on each genre of programming as well as on programming for the different regions that it broadcasts to.
5. Profile of the SABC
5.1 Stations and channels
The SABC runs 18 radio stations (15 of which fall under the public broadcasting division) and three television channels (one of which is licensed as a public commercial service). A further two regional channels have been licensed but are not on air – pending financing for these. Provision has been made for these channels on the digital multiplex reserved for the SABC.
ICASA does not specifically define the target audience of any of the SABC stations and channels in their licence conditions – unlike in the case of private and community players. The conditions are fairly generic (with some differences in Schedule B relating to coverage area and Schedule C of the licence relating to Special Conditions). The only reference to target audience in the licences (for both public and public commercial services) is contained in Schedule C of the individual conditions entitled “General Requirements”. This states:
The Licensee shall, during the South African performance period, provide programme material that caters for all sectors of South African society and shall provide information on and relevant to the following:
4.7.1 people living with disabilities;
4.7.2 health-related issues;
4.7.3 gender issues; and
4.7.4 all age groups.
The licence conditions further do not specify the breakdown between speech and music for public radio services – again unlike conditions for community and commercial radio stations.
5.1.1 Public service broadcasters
The SABC public wing comprises 15 radio stations, including 11 full-spectrum services broadcasting in each of the official languages, a station broadcasting in the Northern Cape in !Xu and Khwe, a service for the Indian community and one targeting the Eastern Cape. Two of the three national television channels also fall under the public wing – as well as the two regional television services which are yet to broadcast.
Public radio stations
The following list is in alphabetical order. The stations are described both in terms of SABC’s promotional material and in relation to their licence conditions.
Ikwekwezi FM
Ikwekwezi broadcasts in isiNdebele. SABC states on its web-site that the station is “positioned to improve the lives of its listeners by keeping them in touch with current issues while catering for the needs and tastes of the Ndebele people”. There are apparent discrepancies between the station’s promotional material and branding and licence conditions issued by ICASA. Whilst ICASA’s documents and policies suggest that all public service stations shall be full spectrum and target all sectors of the defined audience, SABC states that the station “targets 25-49 year olds in LSM 4-8” (the economically active middle class).
Lesedi FM
Lesedi FM broadcasts in seSotho to the Free State and other provinces. SABC states that the station “strives to reconcile traditional values with the freedom to express cultural roots whilst fusing these into the modern world”. The station offers news, information, talk and drama amongst other programmes.
Ligwalagwala FM
Ligwalagwala FM is the siSwati service of the SABC. The Corporation describes the station as speaking to “young, aspirational, upwardly mobile black people living in Mpumalanga … its listeners are progressive and brand-conscious”. This again seems to contradict ICASA licence conditions, which stipulate that the station should target all members of the community.
Lotus FM
Lotus FM targets the Indian community in KwaZulu Natal, Gauteng, the Western Cape and Port Elizabeth. It broadcasts predominantly in English, but according to licence conditions, must also provide programming in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujurati and Telegu. Whilst ICASA specifies as with others that the station must cater for all sectors of society, SABC describes Lotus FM as catering “for the needs of the progressive South African Indian community … between the ages of 25-34 (core) and 35-49 (secondary) in the LSM 7-10 segment”.
Motsweding FM
Motsweding FM broadcasts in Setswana. SABC brands the station as offering “a highly interactive environment with its listeners, providing a perfect mix of news, music, current affairs, talk shows, education, sport, weather and traffic.”
Munghana Lonene FM
Munghana Lonene broadcasts in xiTsonga. The SABC again describes the station as focusing on a particular segment of the xiTsonga speaking population rather than all members of this community. It states that the “station has been positioned to reach audiences within the LSM 4-8, 25-49 year-old market living in metropolitan and rural African communities. The programme mix is to “edutain”. The station format offers an equal split between music and talk”.
PhalaPhala FM
The station broadcasts in Tshivenda. There are again apparent contradictions between the branding for the station and ICASA requirements. SABC states that the station “talks to young aspirational and upwardly mobile black people living mainly in the Northern Province and broadcasts in Tshivenda. It is mostly a music station with a small degree of talk: 80% of the music being South African, with a fair amount of R&B and Hip-Hop”.
Radio Sonder Grense (RSG)
RSG is a national Afrikaans language station. The SABC states that the station “targets the modern, progressive Afrikaans-speaking community regardless of colour and race. It seeks to attract forward-thinking Afrikaans-speaking people between the ages of 25 and 49 years from the upper LSM’s (7-10)”. This indicates that the station is focusing on the wealthy economically active Afrikaans population, rather than all Afrikaans speakers - a significant proportion of whom are not white and/or wealthy.
Radio 2000
The station is licensed as a “facility service” and has to include education, sport, and religious programming as well as music in a range of genres in all official languages. It broadcasts nationally from Johannesburg. As a facility service it airs live important events – such as the President’s State of the Nation Address.
SAfm
SAfm is the SABC’s national English language public radio station. The Corporation says that the station “draws its audience from LSM's 7-10. Its core listeners fall into the age bracket 30-49. The station has also actively sought a 'diverse' audience (currently 61% black vs 39% white”).
Thobela FM
Thobela FM is a Sepedi radio station broadcasting in Gauteng, Limpopo Province and Mpumalanga. SABC states that the station’s “core target market fits into the 25-49 year age group in LSM 4-8”.
tru FM
SABC describes tru FM as “the gateway to regional consumers in the Eastern Cape”. It says that the station broadcasts in English (60 per cent of the time) and isiXhosa (40 per cent). Whilst ICASA says the station broadcasts to all South Africans of all ages in its target area, SABC describes the station as the SABC’s only youth service (ages 16-24). Licence conditions specify that the station must include programming for children as well as current affairs programmes, educational programmes and informal knowledge building programmes.
Ukhozi FM
The station broadcasts in isiZulu. SABC states that the station “keeps its Zulu speaking audiences connected to their cultural identity in a modern world-context”. It has the largest audience of any station in South Africa (see audience figures below) and the SABC claims that it is the second biggest radio station in the world and the largest radio station in Africa.
Umhlobo Wenene FM
The station broadcasts in isiXhosa. Most of its audience is in the Eastern Cape though it also broadcasts in the Western Cape, Gauteng, and Eastern Cape. Umhlobo Wenene FM is the second largest station in South Africa.
X-K FM
X-K FM is described by the SABC as a community station. It broadcasts for 12 hours a day in the KhoiSan languages of !Xu and Khwe. The station focuses on the community surrounding Platfontein in the Northern Cape and first started broadcasting in February 2004.
Public television
The two national public television channels are SABC 1 and SABC 2.
The SABC defines SABC 1 as “the reflector of issues that impact on the youth and youthful at heart”. ICASA does not define a particular target audience (such as the youth), but requires that the channel broadcast in Nguni languages and English.
SABC 2 is licensed to broadcast in Afrikaans, the SeSotho languages, XiTsonga, Tshivenda and English. SABC describes the station as the “family channel”.
The SABC has been licensed to provide a further two regional television services (SABC 4 and SABC 5) – though licences for these two language services covering the North and South of the country respectively will only be issued once the broadcaster has assured funding for these from Treasury.
The public commercial services are subject to the same terms and conditions as private commercial stations and channels – but have to adhere to the values of public broadcasting (Sec 11 Broadcasting Act).
5.1.2 Public commercial services
There are three public commercial radio stations:
• 5fm is a national music station broadcasting predominantly in English. It is licensed as a contemporary hit radio station.
• Metro FM also broadcasts in all major cities of South Africa in English and is licensed as an Urban Contemporary music station. SABC describes the station as
the largest National Urban Commercial station in South Africa … The station’s core genre, R&B, is the most popular music genre amongst South Africans between 16 and 34. It epitomises Black success and leadership with attitude. Its listeners are high achievers with a lot of style, confidence, potential and the enviable ability to feel at home in a non-racial South Africa.
• Good Hope FM broadcasts in English and Afrikaans in the Western Cape and is licensed as a Contemporary Hit Radio Rhythmic service.
SABC 3 (which broadcasts in English) is the designated public commercial television channel. According to the SABC, the channel’s footprint is largely in the metropolitan areas of South Africa. Its core target audience is defined by the Corporation as LSM 7-10 (the wealthy), ”with LSM 5-6 being the secondary target audience”.
6. Organisation
According to section 14 of the Broadcasting Act the affairs of the Corporation are administered by an Executive Committee (Exco) which includes the Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and a maximum of 11 other members. The Exco is accountable to the Board.
There are 4 353 positions at the SABC though according to the 2008/2009 annual report and a total staff complement of 4 098 (3 542 permanent and 574 fixed-term contracts).
It was not possible to investigate in depth the ratio of management to staff at the SABC, but in informal discussions concerns were raised that the SABC might be too top heavy. There are also perceptions that the ratio of managers to staff is lowest for departments dealing with administration as against those related to programming or individual stations and channels. Information contained in annual reports seems to confirm the validity of such concerns. The 2005 annual report, for example, listed 15 members of Exco, while the 2007 report indicated there were 20 members, and this figure dropped to 16 members according to the 2007/2008 report, while the 2008/2009 report listed 20 members (noting that seven of these are invitees to Group Executive meetings).
The SABC has gone a long way towards transforming the profile of the staff to make it more representative of the population. In its 2007/2008 annual report it notes that the percentage of black staff in the corporation increased from 58.2 per cent in 2001 to 74 per cent in 2008, and that in March 2008, 66 per cent of all managers were black (compared to 41.4 per cent in 2001).
South Africa has also set itself a target for employment of people with disabilities within the public service. SABC however falls short of this target (2 per cent of all employees by 2010) and looks unlikely to achieve it. Its statistics state that as of March 2007, 0.58 per cent of its employees had disabilities (compared to 0.44 per cent the previous year). The annual report does not disaggregate this data in terms of gender or management. No figures are provided in its 2008/2009 annual report.
SABC boasts that its news and current affairs department is “the biggest news gathering organisation in Africa”. The news division (which services the public and public commercial wings) has13 editorial offices around the country, a staff of 972 people and a network of correspondents around South Africa.
By 2008, there were 13 news bureaus around the world, and the-then head of news Snuki Zikalala told newspapers in 2008 that the broadcaster planned to have a total of 20 international bureaus by 2010. However, these offices proved to be a significant drain on the broadcaster’s resources, and by 2009 eight of them had been closed down.
6.1 The role of the Group Chief Executive Officer
The Group Chief Executive Officer is, in terms of the editorial policies of the SABC, also the editor-in-chief of the broadcaster. The policy document entitled The SABC’s Mandate: Powers, Functions, Rights and Obligations, spells out a process of what it calls “voluntary upward referral”. The policy gives responsibility to individual producers and commissioning editors for editorial control, but states that if necessary (if “any difficulty arises” or if they are “unsure of anything”) they should “consult” their direct supervisor. The document states that this “process of voluntary upward referral could extend as far as the Group Chief Executive Officer”.
The policy also requires that “even when specific editorial advice is not asked for, programmes or news items that are controversial, or likely to have an extraordinary impact, should be reported in advance to the senior news and programming executives”.
They may in turn report the matter to top management. If a producer or editor does not do this, the policy document specifies that they will be held responsible for the editorial decision made.
The mandate document further clarifies the role of the GCEO in this regard:
The role of editor-in-chief … should not be confused with the functions of the Heads of Radio, Television, News, Sport and Education or of the other editors and station and channel managers employed by the SABC. The GCEO’s role is not to make day-to-day programming or newsroom decisions. However, the Board of the SABC delegates responsibility, and holds accountable the GCEO for the performance of all news and other programmes …
The SABC states that this policy should be a “mutually empowering, nurturing and developmental approach for all the staff involved. It is not meant to shift editorial decision-making upwards; it is intended … to underpin collective decision-making”.
This policy was developed through extensive public consultation before finalisation by the Board. The designation of the CEO as Editor-in-Chief was criticised in a number of submissions on the draft policies. The South African National Editors’ Forum (SANEF), for example, stated:
The … larger concern of Sanef is that the GCEO of the SABC has, arguably, as his (sic) core responsibility, the business wellbeing of the corporation. This duty does not sit easily with editorial responsibilities ... Sanef is aware that (other public broadcasters) operate with their Director Generals also being Editor-in-chief … (However such broadcasters) … have a different business model to SABC, meaning that there is far less potential conflict of interests between their business and editorial operations than could be the case in our country … (T)he SABC is faced with earning the vast bulk of its revenue in the marketplace. Even the public service stations and channels are expected to bring in some advertising. (This) means … that there are huge pressures on the GCEO to ensure that advertising targets are met …
Despite such inputs the Board confirmed this delegation of responsibility for editorial decisions to the CEO in the final policy. They did however amend the upward referral clauses. The draft described such referrals as mandatory, for example, while upward referral is voluntary in terms of the final policy.
Nevertheless, there is potential given this structure for commercial (or other) rather than editorial considerations to be given priority. This concern is heightened by the fact that the CEO is effectively appointed by the Minister – which impacts negatively at the very least on perceptions of independence. Even if sole responsibility for his/her appointment was given to the Board though, the inevitable link that the CEO has to both the executive of government and Parliament suggests that in order to ensure that the SABC adheres to the imperative of journalistic independence (both in reality and in terms of perceptions), final decision making powers related to any news issues should vest in the head of news.
6.2 Salaries
The salaries of executives at the SABC are published in the annual reports – as required by the PFMA. According to the 2008 Annual Report, the CEO earned just under R4.58 million for the financial year ending 31 March 2008. This includes a basic salary of R1.8 million and a performance bonus of R2.14 million, as well as pension fund contributions and allowances.
In order to assess this, it is important to benchmark the salary against those of others in government or public entities (including bonuses). During that year the President of the country earned just under R1.2 million, the Governor of the Reserve Bank R2.83m and the Director General of a government department just under R1m. CEOs of other parastatals earned between R1m (Lottery Board) to just under R7m (Transnet and SAA).
According to a study published by the South African National Editors Forum and Gender Links in 2007, SABC newsroom salaries are the second highest of all media companies surveyed. The survey (conducted in 2006 and 2007) found that the average newsroom annual salary is R210 798 (R17 566.50 per month) and that SABC pays above this average.
This average media salary is slightly below the average professional monthly salary across all industries of R18 096, according to an online salary survey conducted by careers24.com. Media salaries are higher though than those of teachers and educators (R13 787), but lower than salaries paid in Information and Communication Technology (R21 062).
6.3 Training
The SABC has its own training department and has developed links with a range of external training organisations to increase skills - including Big Fish film and television school, the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (established by government) and Rhodes University.
6.4 Skills challenges
The SABC – like other media organisations in South Africa – faces challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled staff at all levels of the organisation. Unlike others, however, staff concerns, alleged management abuses and details of supposed intrigues are regularly scrutinised and featured in the pages of newspapers. While the print media have suggested that what they term “an exodus” from the newsroom is due to bad management and/or political interference, the public broadcaster has denied this and described it as a natural movement to “greener pastures”. Both have acknowledged that the SABC is the obvious poaching ground for new broadcasters, and that, for example, the licensing of new subscription television channels has resulted in staff leaving.
What is clear is that the SABC is a complex organisation, difficult to describe accurately and concisely. In some areas the broadcaster excels, regularly winning international and local awards for its programming. On the other hand there appear to be legitimate organisational concerns that need to be addressed. The following summary of successes and challenges perhaps provides some insight into this complexity:
Skills shortages were a major challenge in transforming the SABC from a state into a public broadcaster. There were few other radio broadcasters and only two other television channels prior to the re-regulation of broadcasting in 1994. None of the other television channels produced news and there were limited skills in production of television in languages other than English and Afrikaans. There was virtually no experience in public broadcasting. The broadcaster has managed to some extent to make up for these shortcomings – and to develop new broadcasting talent.
• Despite stories of mass resignations, SABC’s turnover is lower than the national average. SABC states in its 2008 Annual Report that staff turnover for the financial year ending 31 March 2008 was 7.5 per cent. A Deloitte and Touche National Remuneration Guide for 2007 based on data gathered from approximately 300 South African companies reportedly found that the average turnover for 2006 was 12.3 per cent. The SABC figures do not provide a breakdown of turnover per department or region.
• There has been little stability at a senior management level. No Chairperson of the Board of the SABC has ever stood for a second term and since 1993 there have been six different chairs of the SABC Changes in the board seem to precipitate a change-over of the executive leadership. Since 1994 the broadcaster has had five different CEOs and a range of acting chief executives as managers have resigned prior to the end of their contracts. This gives a perception of different eras at the SABC – with concomitant changes in emphasis and strategy (as well as consultants guiding the vision).
• Similarly, the list of journalists and editors who have been at and left the SABC is long and illustrious. These include current press ombudsman Joe Thloloe, ex-editor, commentator and writer Allister Sparks, editor of the Financial Mail, Barney Mthombothi, former City Press editor Mathatha Tsedu, Mail & Guardian editor Ferial Haffajee, senior journalist and award winning investigative journalist Jacques Pauw, current events commentator Max du Preez, morning radio talk show host Tim Modise, respected journalist John Perlman, award winning presenter Nikiwe Bikitsha, journalist and researcher Pippa Green, head of Telkom Media’s news Jimi Matthews and Business Day political editor Karima Brown. Many of these left amidst speculation that the environment was not conducive to “good journalism”.
• There have been accusations that with the departure of experienced staff, standards have dropped. Former television editor Charles Leonard (now news editor at Business Day), for example, has written a stinging attack on the impact such resignations have had on the SABC:
(T)here was nobody senior on the input side to ensure journalistic and technical quality. With some exceptions, the standards dropped radically, with blue pictures, jump cuts, fuzzy pictures, poor audio and irrelevant washed-out file pictures the order of the day … The journalism became even worse.
Internal SABC investigations suggest that the public broadcaster needs to address issues, amongst other things, around management and skills in the newsroom:
• In 2006, newspapers in South Africa, citing sources and quoting from leaked documents, stated that the SABC blacklisted certain commentators on the basis of their political views. The SABC appointed a Commission (including ex SABC CEO, Zwelakhe Sisulu and leading media advocate Gilbert Marcus) to investigate these allegations. Whilst the substance of the findings of the Commission will be dealt with in Chapter 8, it should be mentioned here that the Commissioners also (very diplomatically) highlighted concerns about management style in the newsroom.
The report found, amongst other things, that the then head of news, Snuki Zikalala (whose contract with the SABC has since come to an end), “appears to intervene at a micro-level inappropriate to his level of management”. Whilst acknowledging that there were differing opinions amongst witnesses on morale in the news department, the Commission recommended that the Board “take close cognisance” of concerns raised about management style and issues of communication. The Commission pointed out that micro-management seemed to stem from a lack of trust by senior management in staff, but suggested that this be addressed through ongoing training. The report further said that a number of concerns had been raised about the Cape Town news office, and suggested that these be investigated further.
According to a report by the Board and management to the relevant Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in February 2008, the head of news was given a verbal warning and counselling to address concerns about his management style. Members of the Portfolio Committee voiced doubt over the appropriateness of this censure given the severity of the allegations.
• An earlier internal probe (led by advocate Thlaresang Mkhwanazi and Head of the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University, Guy Berger) dealt with the failure by the SABC to include footage of the Deputy President being booed at a rally in 2005. Whilst the final report cleared the SABC of political bias, it highlighted structural weaknesses in the news department, poor news judgement and bad journalism as some of the reasons for the non-coverage of the booing. The report further raised issues of corporate governance, alleging that a Board member had instructed the spokesperson of the organisation to make a false statement.
7. Conclusions and recommendations
In many ways the SABC is a microcosm of policies and politics in South Africa. As the first institution to be democratised after the end of apartheid, the experiences of the public broadcaster offered insights for others into the complexity of transformation of state entities into public institutions.
The African Commission on Peoples’ and Human Rights Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression states in Article 6 that:
State and government controlled broadcasters should be transformed into public service broadcasters, accountable to the public through the legislature rather than the government, in accordance with the following principles:
- Public broadcasters should be governed by a board which is protected against interference, particularly of a political or economic nature;
- The editorial independence of public service broadcasters should be guaranteed.
The SABC is, in terms of law, accountable to the public through the legislature rather than government. Non-executive members of the Board are appointed by Parliament and the legislation provides for the SABC to account on how it is meeting its mandate to the legislature.
Its editorial independence is guaranteed in its Charter, which clearly stipulates that the broadcaster enjoys freedom of expression “and journalistic, creative and programming independence as enshrined in the Constitution”. The board is charged with protecting this autonomy.
However, whilst the SABC is governed by a Board, which in theory is both protected against interference through the above injunctions, and acts as the guardian of such independence, the power given to the shareholder (the Minister of Communications) through the Articles of Association to, for example, effectively appoint the executive management, impinges on and limits this freedom. As outlined in detail in the subsequent chapter, the public broadcaster’s dependence on advertising revenue further potentially impacts on its autonomy from commercial interests.
Finally, the experience of the SABC shows that legal safeguards alone do not ensure dynamic public broadcasting responsive only to the needs of viewers and listeners. As noted, even before the introduction of the Articles of the Association, the board of the SABC “consulted” government about appointment of the CEO. It is critical therefore to build in effective mechanisms for accountability and transparency and ensure that the leadership of the broadcaster is committed to the principles of public broadcasting.
Recommendations
The SABC plays an important role in South Africans’ lives. The following recommendations will assist in ensuring that the public broadcaster meets the public’s expectations:
• There is a need to review the White Paper on broadcasting through a participatory process involving the public in debate about what exactly they want from a public broadcaster.
• This should include a review of the legal status of the SABC (including an evaluation of whether or not a Pty Ltd is the appropriate structure for such a statutory body) and of the division of the Corporation into public and public commercial wings. In the event that the current corporatised structure is found to be appropriate, the necessary adjustments must be made to legislation (specifying, for example, that the shareholders are the public of South Africa). The aim should be to protect the SABC’s independence and reflect its statutory status.
• In line with this, an SABC Act should be drafted, capturing the decisions in the White Paper. Sections of the current Broadcasting Act dealing generally with broadcasting or with the community or commercial sectors, should be incorporated into the Electronic Communications Act (if not already captured).
• As an important cornerstone of democracy, the SABC should be given the same status and protections in the Act as those awarded to constitutional entities and should be listed as a constitutional institution (rather than a public entity). The necessary changes should also be made to the Public Finance Management Act and Broadcasting Act.
• The SABC Charter should be reviewed in order to capture the objectives for public broadcasting determined through the consultative process. It should be decided whether or not the Charter should be separated out from the law and be made subject to regular review.
• The appropriate oversight provisions should be evaluated taking into consideration the need for the SABC to be accountable and its independence. Provisions such as those suggested by the Parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee to review constitutional institutions could be considered to enhance the SABC’s independence. Such measures would include strengthening the oversight role of Parliament rather than the executive.
• In the review of the White Paper and in drafting a new Act, the following issues, amongst others, should also be explored extensively:
o The appointments procedure of the Board must be reviewed in order to ensure its credibility and legitimacy and to protect the process from political interference. A range of different options should be considered in order to enhance such credibility – including the establishment of an independent appointment panel.
o The ideal composition of the Board should be evaluated in relation to its defined role and be broadly discussed and debated. This should include decisions on whether or not executive members should be included as full members of the Board, and if so how.
o The option of staggered terms of office for Board members should be considered to provide for continuity.
o The clauses on disqualification should be reviewed to protect the SABC from actual and perceived conflicts of interest as well as from accusations of political bias.
o Legislation should specify that the Board is solely responsible for appointment of the CEO and other senior managers.
o The distinct roles of the Board and the executive should be clarified in order to ensure that the Board does not get involved in the day-to-day running of the SABC (or be perceived to be involved in it).
o Specific and feasible mechanisms binding the SABC to transparency, openness and accountability to the public should be considered. These could include specific clauses detailing the SABC’s obligations to television licence holders as detailed above.
In relation to the internal structure of the SABC:
o A review/evaluation of why CEOs and Chairs of the Board change so regularly should be conducted in order to address any issues faced and ensure stable leadership of the SABC.
o A proper audit of the structure and organogram should be undertaken in order to determine the appropriate staffing of the SABC and address concerns of centralisation of management.
o This should include a review of how best to structurally protect programming from commercial or political pressures (whether real or perceived). The decision to make the CEO the editor-in-chief should be reviewed in consideration of these imperatives.
• There needs also to be an organisational audit to determine the reasons for alleged low morale and resignations of key staff members in order to develop plans to address these. The SABC should ideally be the preferred employer of news and production staff.
• There should be ongoing assessment of the training needs of staff at the SABC to ensure members are equipped to deal with the challenges in delivering on the broadcaster’s mandate.
CHAPTER 7: Funding of the South African Broadcasting Corporation
Adequate funding is critical to innovative public broadcasting. However, sufficient funds alone do not ensure credible and distinctive programming that is responsive to the needs of all citizens, rather than the demands (or whims) of politicians, advertisers or managers of the broadcaster. Funding also needs to be secure to ensure the broadcaster is not influenced (even inadvertently) by market or political vagaries and is able to develop creative long-term strategies to meet defined public goals.
The ideal funding model has been the subject of much debate in South Africa (as elsewhere in the world) since the early 1990s. The focus in the country, however, has been predominantly on the ratios of public to commercial funding rather than on the most appropriate mechanisms to secure adequate funding. These debates, moreover, have not had any effect on the dependence by the SABC on advertising and sponsorship revenue.
In addition, new considerations, such as the introduction of digital broadcasting and possibilities arising from increased access and take-up of broadband, may require a review of both the needs and funding models for public broadcasting. Such new technologies have prompted evaluations of funding for broadcasters internationally.
In 2008, for example, the UK communications regulator, the Office of Communications (OFCOM), began a review of public service broadcasting by calling for comment on a paper outlining threats and opportunities to public service content on television. OFCOM states that it is critical in the process to evaluate the best funding mechanisms to meet audience needs in a new digital environment, given audience fragmentation across different platforms (including over the internet) and declining commercial revenue.
France has also recently announced a shake-up of public broadcasting funding. In January 2008, President Nicolas Sarkozy declared that advertising on public service television would be phased out completely by 2011. In June 2008 a parliamentary commission established to fine tune his proposals declared that advertising during prime time on public television would be phased out from January 2009. According to the plan, lost revenues will be replaced by taxes collected from internet, mobile phone and commercial broadcasting companies.
1. Overview
When addressing questions around funding of public broadcasting in South Africa it is important to consider the broad history of funding of the SABC. Unfortunately the frequent changes in the leadership of the SABC described in the previous chapter, as well as changes in the management of the Department of Communications, have affected institutional memory, making it difficult in certain instances to obtain insights into decisions.
The following are some of the key decisions/milestones affecting public broadcast funding:
• Pre 1994: The SABC is a state broadcaster focusing on the narrow interests of the apartheid government – despite the fact that it is funded primarily through advertising. According to a report by the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), the 1994 SABC annual report indicated that licence fees accounted for 20 per cent of all revenue, and advertising income made up 74 per cent of revenue. Advertising was allowed on television from 1978 (two years after its introduction in South Africa).
• 1995: The then regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), issues the Triple Inquiry Report (see chapter three) and makes proposals on the viability of public broadcasting:
o The SABC should be funded through a mix of advertising and sponsorship, licence fees, government grants and “other income such as merchandising their products and leasing facilities”. No recommendations are made on the ratio of the different revenue streams.
o The funding mix and alternative options for collecting fees should be reviewed in 1998.
o Parliament should provide funding on a triennial basis for:
♣ The cost of provincial splits on radio and television services;
♣ The cost of increasing African language and local content television programming on the SABC;
♣ The cost of funding educational programming - including that of conducting a viability study into the desirability and viability of dedicated educational stations/channels.
The proposal by the IBA was to streamline the SABC and sell off eight regional radio stations and one television channel. It was recommended that the SABC be allowed to keep national commercial stations Metro and 5FM as they provide “crucial revenue”. The revenue generated by the sale of stations would be invested in the SABC to assist in the restructuring of the broadcaster.
• 1996: Parliament ratifies the Triple Inquiry Report. However, it decides in response to SABC lobbying that no television channels should be sold and only six of the regional commercial services be put up for sale. The sale of the stations is finalised later in the year. The IBA awards licences based on diversity of ownership and promises of performance rather than to the highest bidder. National Treasury keeps the funds raised (R510.1m) – leaving SABC without the revenue from the commercial services or the benefits of the sale. The SABC objects strongly to the claiming of the profits by government - to no avail.
• 1997: The SABC, according to its annual report, records a deficit of R64 million – attributed to the expanded mandate and a shift away from the broadcaster by advertisers. The broadcaster warns Parliament that the deficit could grow to an estimated R650 million if the broadcaster is not restructured and streamlined.
The then responsible Minister, Jay Naidoo, notes that government will, in the short term at least, fund certain public interest programmes at SABC, including regional radio splits, educational broadcasting, African language programming and South African content (in line with IBA recommendations) and introduce a three year funding model. He indicates however that it is important that the SABC moves towards self-sufficiency.
The SABC implements recommendations from international consultancy McKinsey to cut costs in light of government pressure to be self-sufficient:
o About 1 400 jobs are shed.
o Certain public programming (including local content) is axed from prime time in favour of more commercially viable programmes (such as international sitcoms and less costly South African programmes including game shows).
o SABC decides to outsource all production except news and current affairs.
Towards the end of the year, the Green Paper on Broadcasting is launched by government for public comment. The paper asks for submissions on the “realistic proportion of revenue from advertising, transactions and public funds” for the public broadcaster.
• 1998:
o The Minister of Communications states that the SABC has to be self-sufficient due to “budget constraints of this government”. “This government,” he says, “is not going to give it more money”. He announces that government funding for the SABC would be cut by 41 percent (from R235 million in the 1997/98 financial year to R141 million in the 1998/99 budget).
o The Broadcasting White Paper is published. A new funding model is mooted, dependent on the division of the SABC into public and commercial arms. The paper states:
Funding sources for the public broadcaster will consist of licence fees, grants, advertising and sponsorship. Advertising revenue of the public arm of the SABC will be less than that of the commercial arm. It is likely that cross-subsidisation of this arm from dividends paid by the commercial arm of the SABC will also be required, as may be some degree of budget supplementation from the general revenues of the Government. The public broadcasting arm of the SABC will also be allowed to sell advertising time, but such services cannot obtain their predominant form of revenue from advertising …
The paper also stipulates that the separation into public and public commercial divisions will be a “precursor” to possible “privatisation of, or the introduction of private equity to, the SABC’s commercial services”. It stipulates that the commercial arm will provide dividend payments to the Minister who will reallocate these as necessary to the public broadcasting arm. “Any surplus will be paid into the National Revenue Fund.”
o Television fees paid to the SABC for possession of a television increase by 10 per cent (from R189 to R208 per annum).
• 1999:
o The Broadcasting Act (No 4 of 1999) is promulgated and separates the SABC into public and a commercial wing. Section (10)2 states the public wing is funded by “advertising and sponsorship, grants and donations, as well as licence fees … and may receive grants from the State”. Section 11(d) says the commercial wing must subsidise the public division “to the extent recommended by the Board in consultation with the Minister”. This division must be run efficiently so as to “maximise the revenue to be provided to its shareholder (the government)”. Section 18(7) states that any dividends to be paid to the shareholder must be paid into the National Revenue Fund.
o In terms of the new legislation the SABC now has to abide by the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) which, amongst other things, sets criteria for financial reporting in order to hold public bodies more accountable (including requiring bodies to report for example on senior executive salaries).
o Regional splits on SABC television are discontinued after funding from the government was stopped.
• 2000: SABC records a deficit of R28.1 million for the 1999/2000 financial year. Government approves a new three-year funding plan for the SABC.
• 2001: SABC cuts in expenditure (including on public interest programming in prime time) bear dividends and the broadcaster posts a R5.3 million surplus for the 2000/2001 financial year.
• 2002:
o The Broadcasting Amendment Act is promulgated. Amongst other things, amendments are made to clauses outlining the process of corporatising the SABC.
o The Act also stipulates that a further two public regional channels must be licensed which would cater for languages other than English and Afrikaans. Legislation states that these channels will be funded through money appropriated by Parliament and via grants, donations and sponsorships, and tasks the regulator with determining the “extent to which these services may draw revenue from advertising”.
o The ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), adopts a resolution at its national conference stipulating that government must “move towards establishing a publicly funded model of the public broadcaster“ and “increase its funding of the public broadcaster” in order to reduce dependence on advertising.
o The SABC announces that it has stabilised its business and records a R7 million profit.
• 2003:
o Television licence fees are increased again for the first time in five years, this time by eight per cent (from R208 to R225 per annum).
o New licence fee regulations strengthen the licence fee collection mechanisms by, for example, ensuring that no person can buy a television set without proof of a TV licence.
o In a policy paper on the public regional channels, the regulator (now restructured and named the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa – ICASA) announces that these services will not be allowed advertising. The Position Paper also prohibits the use of English on the channels.
• 2004: The SABC corporatisation process is finalised. One of the financial implications is that the SABC is now liable to pay company tax.
• 2005:
o SABC announces an after-tax profit of R194 million for the 2004/2005 financial year.
o ICASA issues new licence conditions for SABC services, in line with the Broadcasting Act. For the first time, the SABC has to comply with limitations on advertising on television (bringing it in line with conditions for commercial broadcaster e.tv). The licence conditions state that television channels may not broadcast an average of more than 10 minutes per hour of advertising calculated annually, and that they may not air more than 12 minutes of advertising in any one hour. No distinction is made between public and public commercial channels – potentially negating the suggestion in the Broadcasting White Paper that there should be less advertising on public services.
o ICASA also announces that it will not issue the licences awarded to the SABC’s two proposed regional television channels (SABC 4 and SABC 5) “pending the SABC securing appropriate and sufficient funding, to the satisfaction of the Authority”. It relaxes its earlier rule on no advertising on the two channels.
• 2006: The SABC announces an after-tax profit of over R382 million.
• 2007: The SABC announces an after-tax profit of R183million. - At the ANC National Conference in December 2007, another resolution demanding an increase in public funds for the SABC is passed. The resolution is more specific than the 2002 one – probably in reaction to the non-implementation of the previous decision. The resolution stipulates that government must increase funding for the SABC from “the current 2 (two) per cent (of revenue) to a minimum of 60 per cent by 2010”.
• 2008: The SABC announces an after-tax profit of R321 million.
• 2009:
o The SABC announces an after-tax loss of R790 million.
o The Department of Communications introduces the Public Service Broadcasting Bill, which proposes a radical change to the SABC’s funding model. It proposed that in future, funds for public broadcasting are to be paid into a Public Service Broadcasting Fund, to be administered by the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA). All broadcasters would be allowed to apply for funding through this mechanism. Public broadcasting should be funded from personal income tax (not more than 1 percent), money appropriated from Parliament, contributions from broadcasting services licencees, contributions from business and money accruing to the Fund.
o The interim SABC board implements a stabilisation plan to address the myriad problems facing the broadcaster, including the resolution of a wage dispute with staff, a plan for payment of critical debt, cost reduction and increase of revenues.
2. Sources of funding
The SABC is predominantly reliant on commercial income (advertising and sponsorship). According to the most recent annual report (2008/2009), the funding mix for operations for that year (ending 31 March 2009) was:
Commercial funding 77% (R3.663bn)
Licence fee income 18% (R865m)
Government allocation 2% (R106m)
Other (including sale of merchandise,
rental of studios, etc.) 3% (865m)
This excludes the R150 million allocation from government for implementation of the technology plan. By the end of the financial year, R23m of this grant had been received.
As indicated above, the dependence on commercial revenue pre-dates the advent of democracy and the transformation of public broadcasting in 1994. Whilst the increased mandate and alleged advertiser caution in light of changes at the SABC initially resulted in the corporation running at a loss, the broadcaster declared high profits from 2004 to 2007 – attributed by SABC’s executive to more effective management. For the 2007/2008 financial year the broadcaster reported that profit after tax grew by 75.8 per cent, but this could be attributed exclusively to a recognition of a Pension Fund surplus. If this profit were stripped out, the actual operating profit amounted to R43 million.
The high profits years coincided with an advertising boom, which slowed down due to the economic downturn starting in 2007. In 2006/2007, for example, the total media adspend grew by 16 per cent (or by R3 billion to about R23 billion) according to advertising research group Nielsen Media Research. Adspend in television over this period grew by 22 per cent and in radio by 12 per cent. Yet in 2007/2008, the growth percentages of media adspend declined considerably. Television adspend in particular increased by a mere 6 per cent while radio remained almost steady with a 13 per cent growth rate. Given its dependence on advertising, SABC is very vulnerable to any reduction in advertising income, which is what took place in 2009 in the wake of the global recession when the broadcaster’s revenue from classic advertising came under pressure, leading to a 0.7 percent decrease in commercial revenue.
At the same time, licence fee income has gone up significantly as a result of the introduction of amendments to the Broadcasting Act and related regulations which increased the SABC’s capacity to enforce compliance with the law. The Minister of Communications promulgated the new regulations in 2004, and licence fee revenue jumped from a total of R395 million in that year to R568 million in 2005 when the regulations became effective (44 per cent). It increased again significantly in 2006 (to R739 million or by another 30 per cent from 2005), but dropped slightly in the following financial year. The SABC noted in its 2007/2008 annual report that television licence fee revenues came under pressure due to the absence of a rate increase, and the cost of collection increased as a greater portion of revenue came from collections from default licence holders. However, according to the broadcaster’s 2008/2009 annual report, licence fee revenue again increased slightly by 0.7 per cent.
There is broad agreement amongst a range of stakeholders that the over-reliance by the SABC on commercial funding is problematic. The ruling African National Congress has also added its voice to those calling for a publicly funded SABC – though government has not as yet implemented decisions by the party, nor given any indication of whether or how it will adhere to the call for public funding to increase to 60 per cent of total revenue by 2010/11.
According to the 2007/2008 budget of the Minister of Communications the SABC will continue to be profitable. The budget stated that SABC’s revenue rose to R5.1 billion in the financial year ending 31 March 2008, whilst expenses amounted to R4.7 billion. The budget vote noted that expenditure was expected to increase to R5.8 billion by 2010/11, but indicated that the SABC’s “long term sustainability remains positive as the corporation expects to grow its surplus by 45.7% (per cent) over the medium term.”
The department’s 2009 budget was similarly upbeat about the SABC’s finances, stating that the SABC’s expenditure is expected to increase from R5.3 billion in 2008/2009 to R6.2 billion in 2011/2012 at an average annual rate of 5.1 per cent, while revenue is expected to grow from R5.8 billion in 2008/2009 to R7.3 billion in 2011/2012 at an average rate of 9.5 per cent. In the discussion of the department’s budget in the Portfolio Committee on Communications there was no indication of concern about the SABC’s financial state of health.
Newspaper reports, however, said that the SABC has raised concerns about a possible R2 billion shortfall over the next three years. They cited a strategy document reportedly distributed in Parliament, highlighting shortfalls in funding for digitalisation and for SABC’s satellite international news channel (aimed predominantly at the rest of Africa but closed down by the corporation in mid-2008 due to lack of funds).
The matter did not come up in the committee’s meeting with the SABC, when the broadcaster was scheduled to present its strategic plan and budget, as the meeting focussed instead on a variety of issues the committee was unhappy about, leading to the ANC caucus recommending a vote of no-confidence in the board. These events prevented a proper consideration of the SABC’s budget. The full extent of the financial crisis emerged in the coming months, with the SABC reporting a financial loss of R839 million in the 2008/2009 financial year, leading to a request for a R2 billion bail-out from the government.
In response to the crisis, the government agreed to provide a financial guarantee of R1 473 billion, enabling the broadcaster to borrow money in the open market: However, the guarantee came with a number of obligations to be spelt out in a shareholder compact between the SABC Board and the Minister of Communications, including the development of a detailed project plan committing the broadcaster to explicit revenue targets and cost cutting measures to enable effective oversight by the government. While the granting of the guarantee is welcome, the terms of the shareholder compact raise questions for the SABC’s independence.
2.1 Commercial revenue
In the 2007 Annual Report, former Group Chief Executive Officer, Dali Mpofu, singled out the predominance of commercial funding as “the single most important issue facing the corporation and all those who care for a true public service broadcaster which is accountable to the public and neither inherently susceptible to commercial nor state power”.
Since 1994, a range of stakeholders including civil society organisations, media commentators, other broadcasters, and even the ruling party have echoed this sentiment. Some of the identified challenges associated with this dependence on commercial revenue include:
• The resultant over-emphasis on cheaper programmes (whether foreign programmes or less costly local formats) and/or genres which will attract more advertising (such as programmes targeting those with higher incomes) and audiences being regarded as consumers rather than citizens. As media commentator Anton Harber has highlighted, this plays out in a “daily tug of war between commercial and public service interests”.
This tendency is in part countered by tight licence conditions (introduced by ICASA in 2005) and regulations such as those on South African content. These set out minimum percentages for local programming in different genres and stipulate the minimum number of hours each week that must be dedicated to particular types of programming (such as education, drama, children’s programmes and news and information). Licence conditions also set out specific requirements for prime time programming.
However, as can be seen in ICASA’s reasons for decisions on a range of matters (including South African content quotas, sports rights and the SABC’s licence conditions), the effects any rules will have on the viability of the SABC are carefully considered before imposing requirements. The regulator cannot, given the current reality, ignore the impact any rulings could have on the SABC’s sustainability.
• The impact advertising has on the amount of actual time devoted to key programmes such as news and current affairs. Former Head of SABC news Snuki Zikalala has, for example, lamented that the actual amount of news aired in a half hour prime time bulletin is closer to 22 minutes than 30 – given the time taken up by advertising. This affects the number of stories which can be covered, and the depth of coverage of individual stories. SABC Chief Financial Officer Robin Nicholson, however, noted in an interview that this has been countered to some extent by an increase in the number of bulletins aired by the SABC.
• The potential effect sponsorship can have on choice and content of programmes. Whilst ICASA regulations on advertising and sponsorship as well as SABC’s own editorial policies emphasise that the broadcaster must retain editorial control of sponsored programmes, there have been concerns raised regarding adherence to this. The South African Communist Party (SACP), for example, in its submission on the draft editorial policies of the SABC in 2003, highlighted instances where it believed that the broadcaster’s editorial integrity had been compromised. One example given was a financial literacy programme sponsored by two financial institutions. The party complained that the programme did not deal broadly with financial issues facing the target audience but rather consisted of an “hour-long advertisement of a range of products and services” offered by the sponsors. More recently, media critic Brendan Seery has complained about a sponsor’s prominence in a television programme dealing with the environment. He wrote in an article in June 2008 that “Hybrid Living”, airing during prime time on one of the SABC channels and sponsored by Toyota, focused excessively on Toyota products and that “there is no distinction made between the genuine content and the ad plugs …”
• Given the SABC’s dominance in broadcasting, commercial operators have raised concerns that the emphasis on commercial income limits the number of other broadcasters that can be viable in South Africa, and therefore diversity. Broadcasting’s (radio and television) share of adspend according to AC Nielsen was 51 per cent of the total in 2009 SABC’s share of this is predictably high (accounting, for example, for roughly 75 per cent of all television adspend) given the number of channels and stations it airs compared to commercial and community operators who are bound by ownership restrictions.
As media commentator and academic Anton Harber noted in a column: “If the SABC takes less of the advertising pot, this should provide new opportunities for other media and make the market more competitive”.
The head of commercial television channel e.tv, Marcel Golding, echoed the concerns raised by many private broadcasters when he spoke at a conference on fair competition:
The sheer size of the SABC provides it with a distinct uncompetitive advantage. With three (free-to-air) television channels and 21 radio stations, it is able to offer advertising packages which other broadcasters cannot match. It is also able to monopolise the audience by using its multiple channels to promote its services. It is the only broadcaster in the country which operates national commercial radio services which provides it with a sizeable advantage over its private sector competitors.
The contradictions resulting from the SABC’s legislative obligation to deliver on its public mandate whilst relying on commercial funding are further exacerbated by its licence conditions. As noted above, these do not distinguish between the number of minutes of advertising allowed on the public or commercial divisions (despite the White Paper on Broadcasting’s declaration that commercial funding for the public wing should not be the most dominant source of revenue). SABC’s public services are allowed the same amount of advertising as its commercial services – and the same number of minutes as private free–to-air channel e.tv.
In fact, judging from SABC rate cards, advertising on public television service SABC 1 is substantially more expensive than on the commercial channel SABC 3 – reflecting the higher audience figures. The November 2009 rate cards for the channels show that a 30 second advertising slot during primetime news (7.30pm) on public channel SABC 1 would cost R71 000, whereas a slot during primetime news on commercial channel SABC 3 would cost R42 000.
Whilst SABC does not provide a breakdown in its financial reports of the profitability of individual channels and stations, it would seem from the above that the public television channel SABC 1 is more profitable than the SABC’s commercial television channel. This further confuses the real distinction between the two divisions.
2.2 Licence fees
In terms of the Broadcasting Act (Section 27), all owners of a television set or any device capable of receiving a television signal (for example, an enabled mobile phone) have to have a television licence. No fee is payable for possession of a radio set.
The licence is renewed annually in advance, and only one licence is needed per owner - regardless of the number of television sets they possess. Organisations and businesses, however, need to have a separate licence for each set. Dealers in television sets have to have a separate dealers’ licence.
The fee is determined by the Minister of Communications in regulations – on application by the SABC (Section 40 of the Broadcasting Act).
The SABC is responsible for collection of fees and ensuring compliance with the law. Sections 27(3) and (4) of the Act set out penalties the corporation can impose for failure to possess a valid television or dealer licence:
• If a person has owned the television for over three years without a television licence, they have to pay double the fee owed.
• If the transgression is for under three years, the person is liable for a fine of 10 per cent of the licence fee for every month of default.
• If a dealer sells a television set to a person who does not possess a television licence, the dealer has to pay a fine of between R3 000 to R10 000.
Section 27(8) of the Act stipulates that licence fees can only be used to subsidise the public wing of the SABC (both radio and television).
The regulations on television licence fees, promulgated by the Minister in 2004, empowered the SABC to more effectively collect licence fees by requiring that dealers cannot sell a television set without proof that the buyer has a valid licence. Dealers have to submit monthly and annual reports of television sets sold – including details of the names, addresses and ID numbers of purchasers.
The regulations also set out the fees for different categories of user:
• Domestic users, businesses and dealers have to pay R225 per annum.
• People who receive either a state pension or social grant for disability or as a war veteran and any person over the age of 70 have to pay R65 a year.
• Public schools are exempted from payment of the fee.
There is, however, no built-in inflation linked increase in these regulations or in the law, and since1994, the television licence fee has only been increased three times (in 1996, 1998 and 2004). The SABC regularly states in its annual reports that attempts to increase the licence fees have failed; however, no details are given of specific refusals by the Minister of any applications. In the 2007 Annual Report Chief Financial Officer Robin Nicholson states that should there not be regular increases of fees, “growth in net revenue will begin to decline and is likely even to decline as a percentage of revenue”, a prediction that was confirmed by the 2008 Annual Report.
The SABC has also complained about having to pay Value Added Tax (VAT) on television licence income and asked for this to be scrapped. CFO Robin Nicholson expanded on this in an interview for this research:
The VAT that is included in the licence fee amounts to roughly R110m. Should the licence fee be collected by a non profit entity (Section 21 company) established by the SABC, we would not have to pay the VAT and if licence fees remained the same this money would be added to the general SABC pot.
Whilst the SABC has increased compliance with the legal requirement to possess a television licence, it has been a difficult and costly process. Under apartheid, in protest against state control of broadcasting, there was a mass boycott of paying licence fees to the SABC and it has been challenging to turn this culture of non-payment around. In addition, poverty (alongside other factors) results in defaults once people have bought the initial licence.
The SABC estimates that there are about 8.6 million television households in South Africa. According to the 2007 annual report, the number of licence holders stands at about 5.3 million (just under half of whom are fully compliant, with others only partially paid up or defaulting), and no figure are provided in the 2008 and 2009 annual reports. Whilst the SABC has not provided new estimates of piracy rates since its 2004 annual report (which stated that piracy stood at about 38 per cent), it seems from a rough calculation using the 2007 figures that about 33 per cent of television households do not possess a television licence at all (and are therefore not logged on SABC databases). Of the 62 per cent of households that are on the databases, just over 50 per cent are either defaulting or only partially paid up.
Nicholson predicted that the percentage of defaulters will increase as South Africans face increasing financial challenges due to high inflation.
Despite this, and even though increases in fees have not matched inflation, the SABC has, through ensuring compliance with the law, increased the contribution of licence fee revenue to overall revenue. Licence fee income accounted for 15 per cent of total revenue in 2004, 17 per cent in 2008 and 18 per cent in 2009. The increase in television penetration due, among other things, to economic growth and the extension of electricity and television networks, has also contributed to this.
This state of affairs will however be difficult to maintain as collection costs increase in line with inflation. In the 2008 annual report, Nicholson wrote that income from television licence fees for the period April 2007 - March 2008 dropped by one per cent, compared to an increase of one per cent in commercial revenue. Direct licence fee collection costs meanwhile grew, although the report did not say by how much.
In his interview for this research, Nicholson noted that, as of June 2008, it cost the SABC close to R110 out of the licence fee of R225 per year to collect the fee from defaulters. “This makes it still worthwhile for us as we get about R115 as well as the penalties applicable. If we do not receive an increase though in the licence fee, the costs of collection could outweigh the benefits.”
The challenges related to collection of licence fees, among other things, have resulted in calls for a review of the licence fee as a mechanism for funding.
• The IBA in its Triple Inquiry Report suggested that other mechanisms should also be looked at, such as a tax on purchase of cars with radios. It rejected the idea of a proposed tax on electricity because the number of different agencies responsible for collecting electricity fees (including the national electricity company Eskom and local municipalities) would make it difficult to manage and enforce.
• The Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI) and Media Monitoring Africa (MMA, known as the Media Monitoring Project until 2008), among others, have proposed that a broadcasting tax should be considered which would be collected by the South African Revenue Service (SARS) together with income and company taxes. MMA suggested that the tax be set by SARS on recommendation by the broadcasting regulator. It was argued that this would also ensure increased subsidisation by wealthier South Africans.
• The South African Communist Party (SACP) in its submission on the SABC’s editorial policy proposed that the fee be scrapped altogether:
Funding the SABC through the TV Licence Fees is inappropriate; the collection process is expensive, and is unlikely to improve given the rise in unemployment levels and low wages for the majority of employed workers. When the poor cannot afford to pay for these licences, they are criminalised. TV License Fees are also a form of regressive taxation which is not linked to employment status and income levels.
Chief Financial Officer Robin Nicholson says the SABC is well aware that there are people who cannot afford the fee.
We do not go after poor people given this but focus our efforts on those defaulters who are wealthy and can well afford the fee. As inflation is increasing in South Africa we know there will be more and more people who default on payment of their annual television licence due to poverty. In light of this, we are suggesting that government consider statistics on income and exempt people who cannot afford to pay the licence fee from payment. At the same time though, the government should pay over to the SABC a subsidy for low income earners so that we do not bear this cost.
In August 2009, the Minister of Communications approved an 11 per cent television licence tariff increase from R225.00 to R250.00 annually as from 1 August 2009: only the third tariff increase in the past eleven years. According to the SABC, had it been allowed annual inflation-related tariff adjustments since 1998, the current R250.00 fee would now stand at R426.00.
2.3 Public funds
Direct allocations
Direct government allocations to the SABC account for an insignificant proportion of overall revenue (two per cent in the 2007/2008 financial year, excluding funding for the digital technology plan) – despite the broadcaster’s increased mandate due to transformation.
As US scholar Robert Horwitz notes in research on the SABC, a lack of funding from the fiscus has negatively affected the public broadcasting vision in South Africa since 1994:
… the dismal (SABC) budget situation inherited from the last white government doomed even the positive feature of this vision (of transformation). With housing, education, and health care desperately in need of public monies, and with a sizeable portion of the budget precommitted to honoring state pensions as per the transition agreements, the government declined to allocate funds to an institution that had a proven source of funding.
Whilst government allocations are approved by Parliament as part of the Department of Communications allocation on a triannual (rather than annual) basis, as recommended by the then IBA in its Triple Inquiry Report, there appear to be no specific criteria for their determination. Thus, for example, it is difficult to analyse whether or not ongoing funds are allocated to specific projects (such as transmission costs and/or particular programme genres such as education) and on what basis levels of funding are decided upon.
Government funding to the broadcaster has fluctuated. In her 1999/2000 budget the Minister of Communications noted that the subsidy of over R200 million would be reduced to just over R68 million in 2002/2003; however, since then the allocation has gone up again in recent years.
A recommendation by the ANC in 2002, stipulating that the SABC must be predominantly funded by public revenue, also had no effect on the SABC’s budget. Joe Mjwara was the Deputy Director General responsible for broadcasting in the Department of Communications (DoC) at the time. He says the reluctance by Treasury to consider implementing the ANC resolution was due to a combination of factors:
Treasury was reluctant to provide a subsidy to an entity that they saw as self-sufficient. They would ask if there was a specific legal requirement to fund the SABC and did not understand the social needs that were being neglected due to the over-reliance on commercial funding.
At the same time the SABC did not assist us, as their budget applications did not clearly define what aspects of their mandate public funds would contribute to, nor the implications on their mandate of limited public funding ... Despite suggestions made to, for example, restructure the programming line-up during prime time to ensure a better language reflection and include regional broadcasting splits, the SABC fought against these and advocated for the status quo …
It seemed that when the SABC spoke about public funding, it was just talking about an additional source of revenue to do the same commercialised broadcasting … It was difficult, given this, to argue with Treasury that the public broadcaster could not meet its legislative mandate without more funding. The SABC never, for example, showed how it would look and sound different with increased public funds … There has to be a public broadcasting model that is different to that expressed by how the SABC looks and sounds.
Mjwara says that the White Paper on Broadcasting and the Broadcasting Act were aimed at addressing some of these issues, by ensuring that the SABC was given a clear legal mandate through its Charter and that compliance with this and licence conditions would be monitored by the broadcasting regulator. The Act was also aimed at involving the public both in drafting editorial policies and, via ICASA processes, in setting the licence conditions. The legislation, moreover, provided for greater financial accountability by requiring adherence to the Public Finance Management Act and company governance rules. “The legislation has gone some way towards ensuring this”, he says. “However it is time to review the policy and legislative framework alongside the funding model.”
At the ANC’s policy conference in December 2007, the party resolved that the percentage of public funding for the public broadcaster should be increased incrementally to a minimum of 60 per cent of revenue by 2010. Yet this resolution had little noticeable impact on the SABC’s budget. The 2009 budget of the Minister of Communications grants the SABC an additional R20 million in the 2009/2010 financial year (a 7 per cent increase). For the following years the vote envisages a further increase of R88m for the 2010/2011 financial year (29 per cent) and then a 35 percent drop in 2011/2012 (from R388 million to R252 million).
The budget vote estimated SABC’s expenditure for the 2010 financial year to be close to R5.66 billion and still predicts that the bulk of this will be covered by advertising revenue (R4.1 billion), with funding from the fiscus therefore only amounting to about 4.7 per cent of income.
The current budget vote contains limited performance indicators for the SABC as required in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) (see Table 7). The vote gives some detail on previous indicators, current indicators (2007/2008) and future aspirations. The focus though is on outputs in a limited number of areas rather than outcomes, and the measures chosen do not assist in assessing the impact of funding on fulfilment of the public mandate.
Table 7: SABC performance indicators
|
Indicators
|
Performance
|
|
|
2004/05
|
2005/06
|
2006/07
|
2007/08
|
2008/09
|
2009/10
|
2010/11
|
|
% local content increase
|
28
|
25
|
28
|
32
|
25
|
27
|
32
|
|
No of new tv transmitters turned on
|
6
|
8
|
6
|
1
|
316
|
310
|
306
|
|
No of new radio transmitters turned on
|
-
|
2
|
6
|
0
|
119
|
105
|
105
|
|
No of complaints received by Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa against the SABC
|
-
|
147
|
178
|
127
|
|
|
|
|
No of complaints resolved by SABC
|
-
|
134
|
174
|
127
|
|
|
|
Source: Department of Communications, Budget Vote 24
Other government funding
Government departments do fund the SABC outside of the public allocation through, for example, purchasing advertising and sponsoring programmes.
In terms of the Public Finance Management Act, the SABC has to report on income from related parties – including all national government departments and major public entities, but excluding provincial and local government. This income amounts to approximately R249 million for the 2008/2009 financial year (seven per cent of commercial revenue) – though it is not clear how much of this can be attributed to programme sponsorship and production and how much to advertising.
Government is listed by Nielsen Media Research as one of the top ten advertisers in the media - ranking 5th in 2008.. Whilst figures on how this is allocated differ, there are indications that radio stations broadcasting in official languages other than English are key beneficiaries of this spend.
According to Nielsen (which measures total adspend) the print sector receives the largest proportion of these funds (47 per cent), presumably due to the large number of job vacancies advertised. Radio also attracts a significant portion (31 per cent) and 18 percent of the government advertising money is spent on television.
The Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), however, states that of the R206m of advertising that it bought on behalf of other government departments in the 2007/2008 financial year, 44.2 per cent accrued to radio, 22.8 per cent to print and 22.06 per cent to television.
Individual government departments also sponsor specific programmes. GCIS has for example partnered with SABC to produce and air a 13-part television and radio series, Azishe Ke! Opportunity Knocks. According to the 2007 budget speech of the then Minister in the Presidency, Essop Pahad, the GCIS was responsible for the production of the programme which he said was aimed at expanding “access to information about economic opportunities provided by second economy initiatives and programmes”.
In addition, Ministers and top government officials apparently sponsor journalists to attend and cover international and national events that the SABC would otherwise not have the means to report on. Whilst this has not been officially confirmed, the researcher has been reliably informed of this practice – which potentially could skew news selection.
2.4 Cross subsidisation
One of the key motives for the separation of the commercial and public channels and stations in the SABC, according to the White Paper, was to reduce the commercial influence on public programming. It was further envisaged that the commercial wing would cross-subsidise the public wing.
This vision, however, does not seem to have worked in practice.
It is not clear how the SABC decided which channels would be deemed commercial (though the radio stations selected were more obviously commercial, if not money making, even before the introduction of the Act) - those who were in decision-making positions in the SABC at the time have all left the broadcaster so there is limited institutional memory. As noted already, however, there is the curious fact that one of the two public channels, SABC 1, actually commands higher advertising rates than the commercial channel SABC 3, and it thus seems unlikely that there would have been any subsidisation by SABC 3 given this.
Given the difficulties Good Hope FM faces, the SABC may be regretting their lobbying in 1996 in Parliament to keep the station – counter to the proposals by the then IBA.
Whilst SABC annual reports clearly state (as required by law) that the public funds have not been utilised to subsidise the commercial division, there is no indication in these documents if there has been any subsidisation by the commercial wing of the public services.
Nicholson confirmed in an interview that there had not been a formal hand-over of funds from the commercial division to the public wing. He also pointed out that it is very difficult to separate the two units completely:
It is impractical. How for example do we allocate the shared overheads to the different divisions? If for example a commercial radio station is using the same transmitter in an area as some of the public service stations, how do we decide which of the stations pays what costs for that transmitter? In some ways it is just guess work.
According to statements by both the SABC and the Department of Communications during the process of developing the White Paper, an economic study had shown that the model of cross-subsidisation would reduce the public wing’s dependence on advertising revenue. However, this economic study was not made available to other stakeholders and it is therefore hard to assess the causes of the apparent failure of this model.
2.5 Other grant funding
SABC public programmes are funded by other organisations – including donor organisations and corporate social responsibility funds. Many of the programmes financed in this way have won international awards for excellence – providing evidence of the quality that could be aired with sufficient means.
Programmes which have been funded in this way over recent years include:
• Heartlines – This eight part television series focused on eight different generally shared moral/societal values through individual stories. It was produced in partnership with the SABC and primarily sponsored by First National Bank through its social investment fund. Additional funding was provided by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation, World Vision, the Open Society Foundation and the Tides Foundation. Episodes of the series have been selected to be screened at a range of international film festivals and have won both local and international awards.
• Soul City and Soul Buddyz – These radio and television edu-dramas focused on health and development and were produced by the Soul City Institute. The Institute is funded by a range of international and local donors including BP, the Department of Health, the European Union, Development Cooperation Ireland, Royal Netherlands Embassy, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, Pepfar, De Beers and the Department of Public Service and Administration.
• Tsha-Tsha – a drama focusing on HIV/AIDS produced for the SABC by the Centre for Aids, Development, Research and Evaluation. It was funded by USAID.
• Masupatsela Trailblazers – A documentary programme which focused on individuals and communities tackling HIV/AIDS creatively. The series, which was aired on radio and television, was sponsored by USAID, among others.
3. Expenditure
The table below highlights key expenditures (and percentage changes from previous years).
Table 8: Key expenditure budget lines
|
Expenditure
2009
|
(% change)
|
2008
|
2007
|
2006
|
2005
|
2004
|
2003
|
|
Programme and broadcast costs
|
R1.955bn
(9%)
|
R1.92bn
(22.5%)
|
R1.57bn
(17%)
|
R1.34bn
(2%)
|
R1.31bn
(15%)
|
R1.14bn
(6%)
|
R1.083bn
(13%)
|
|
Signal distribution
|
R444m
(17.5%)
|
R378m
(13.9%)
|
R332m
(5%)
|
R315m
(5%)
|
R300m
(5%)
|
R286
(8%)
|
R264
(16%)
|
|
Employee costs
|
R1.637bn
(15.2%)
|
R1.493bn
(38.24%)
|
R1.1bn
(9%)
|
R990m
(21%)
|
R816m
(6%)
|
R771m
(17%)
|
R657m
(6%)
|
|
Marketing
|
R263m
(4%)
|
R253m
(-0.4%)
|
R254m
(42%)
|
R179m
(29%)
|
R139m
(7%)
|
R130m
(16%)
|
R112m
(4%)
|
|
Licence collection costs
|
R176m
(15.8%)
|
R152m
(26.7%)
|
R120m
(10%)
|
R109m
(45%)
|
R75m
(19%)
|
R63m
(2%)
|
R62m
(24%)
|
|
General and admin costs
|
R611m
(63.4%)
|
R469m
(-16.1%)
|
R559m
(54%)
|
R390m
(5%)
|
R371m
(26%)
|
R294m
(10%)
|
R267m
(8%)
|
|
Equipment costs (including software)
|
R194m
(38.6%
|
R138m
(-6.8%)
|
R148m
(15%)
|
R129m
(1%)
|
R128m
(52%)
|
R84m
(-8%)
|
R91m
(23%)
|
|
Income tax
|
R123.49m
|
R52.86m
|
R76.3m
|
R162.9m
|
R96.2m
|
-
|
-
|
|
Total expenditure
|
R4.746bn
(7%)
|
R4.41bn
(8%)
|
R4.1 bn
(19%)
|
R3.46 bn
(10%)
|
R3.15bn
(13%)
|
R2.78 bn
(10%)
|
R2.54 bn
(11%)
|
|
Profit for the year
|
(R790m)
|
R321.3m
|
R182.8m
|
R382.9m
|
R194m
|
R1.6m
|
(R149.8)
|
Source: SABC 2008, 2007 and 2006 Annual Reports
As can be seen from these figures, administrative costs (rather than programming costs) went up significantly in 2006/2007 – accounting for the overall increase of 19 per cent in expenditure against a revenue increase of only 8 per cent. The figure decreased by 2008, only to balloon again by 2009. The SABC has attributed the spending increases to investment in technology and increased marketing costs due to the repositioning of its channels in line with new licence conditions. Media analysts, however, have raised concerns that this might indicate a new general trend towards increased spending. It also needs to be pointed out that the general costs for the year 2006/2007 included a close to 200 per cent increase in expenditure on consulting (up from R44 million in 2005/2006 to R132 million), although this line item decreased by 2008. Expenditure on professional and consulting fees was included as a separate line item in the 2008/2009 Annual Report, which showed that the SABC had spent 38.2 per cent more on these services than in the previous year.
The SABC CFO Robin Nicholson concurred in an interview that the SABC needs to focus on increasing its efficiencies and that costs could be brought down and overheads reduced: “In addition we could for example much more effectively exploit those rights that we own and increase the contribution they make to the revenue.”
It is important to emphasise, however, that the spending increases are not only on administration. The reported expenditure on South African content also went up – as did expenditure on news. The 2007 Annual Report noted that spend on foreign content for that year accounted for 17 per cent of total content spend (compared to 20 per cent in 2006 and 30 per cent in 2005). According to the 2007/2008 Annual Report, the 22 per cent increase in amortisation and impairment of programming, film, sports rights and broadcast costs was driven by the extended mandate, in particular news and local programming. According to the 2008/2009 Annual Report, foreign programming accounted for as much as 46 per cent of total content expenditure, which means that the SABC spent considerably less on local content in that financial year.
Reporting
Whilst the financial statements meet financial reporting requirements, neither they nor the annual reports provide clear information on details of spending that would assist the public to understand exactly how public funds are used – and thus help to make the SABC more accountable to citizens. They do not, for example, outline the percentages spent on administration versus programmes, or comparative spending on programming in the different languages (a fair measure of equitable treatment). They further do not break down spending per station or channel – which would be important given perceptions expressed by amongst others the FXI that administration and head office are consuming a disproportionate percentage of funds.
In fact, the extent of analysis of the financial information provided in the CFO’s report has decreased markedly over the past few years. In 2004, for example, the annual report provided detailed segmental analysis indicating, among other things, the breakdown between revenue and expenditure between the public and commercial services and between television and radio. Such information was not included in the 2008 report. The 2006 annual report indicated how licence fee revenue was allocated (including how much was expended to support overheads and the exact amounts allocated to the public radio stations and the two SABC public television channels). This breakdown too was not contained in the 2008 reports. However, the 2009 Annual Report does include revenue and expenditure breakdowns for the public services and public commercial services.
An analysis of the figures provided seems to indicate that administration costs are increasing as a percentage of total expenditure, whilst the percentage allocated to programming costs is decreasing.
Table 9: Percentage of expenditure per budget line
|
Line item
|
2009
(percentage of overall expenditure)
|
2008
2007
|
|
2006
|
2005
|
2004
|
2003
|
|
Programme and broadcast costs
|
41.2%
|
43.5%
|
38.3 %
|
38.7 %
|
41.6%
|
41%
|
42.5%
|
|
Signal distribution
|
9.4%
|
8.6%
|
8%
|
9%
|
10%
|
10%
|
10.4%
|
|
Employee costs
|
34.4%
|
33.8%
|
26.8%
|
28.6%
|
26%
|
27.7%
|
25.87%
|
|
Marketing
|
5.6%
|
5,7%
|
6.2%
|
5.2%
|
4.41%
|
4.7%
|
4.4%
|
|
Licence collection costs
|
3.7%
|
3.4%
|
2.9%
|
3.2%
|
2.4%
|
2.3%
|
2.4%
|
|
General and admin costs
|
12.9%
|
10.6%
|
13.6%
|
11.3%
|
11.8%
|
10.6%
|
10.5%
|
Source: Own calculation
Table 10 shows that the percentage of consolidated administration costs has grown by close to ten per cent from 2003, and that since the 2008/2009 financial year (2008 in the table) the percentage of spend on such operational costs has been exceeding that on programme costs by between 6-8 per cent. In 2003, by contrast, the percentage spent on programme and broadcast costs exceeded that of administration.
Table 10: Percentage of expenditure on consolidated administrative costs versus programme costs
|
Expenditure description
|
2009
|
2008
|
2007
|
2006
|
2005
|
2004
|
2003
|
|
Programme and broadcast costs
|
41.2%
|
43.5%
|
38.3 %
|
38.7 %
|
41.6%
|
41%
|
42.5%
|
|
Administration costs (including employee costs, general costs and marketing)
|
52.9%
|
50.1%
|
46.6%
|
45.1%
|
42.21%
|
43%
|
40.8%
|
Source: Own analysis
Since the Public Finance Management Act has been in force at the SABC, the broadcaster has been compelled to detail costs related to irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. However, no information at all is given on the circumstances in which fruitless expenditure was incurred, and irregular expenditure and criminal cases are only briefly referred to. Overall, the losses accrued through such irregularities amounted to R65.1m in 2006/2007. Most of these were losses related to fruitless expenditure (defined as expenditure made in vain that could have been avoided had reasonable care been exercised) - a total of R54m. Although a significant amount, the only information provided is that disciplinary action is being taken in “cases 6 and 7” and the minutes of the Parliamentary Monitoring Group (PMG) give no indication that Parliament scrutinised these amounts or asked for further clarification. There is also no word about progress in cases covered in the 2006 annual report, which stated that outstanding recoveries amounted to about R6.2m. According to the 2008 annual report, the SABC ran up R40.6m in “fruitless and wasteful expenditure”. There is evidence in the 2009 Annual Report of some success in recovering such expenditure.
Given the absence of detailed information, it is impossible to analyse what is classified as fruitless expenditure. Robin Nicholson (SABC CFO) said that costs incurred, for example, in putting together a bid for a subscription licence which was withdrawn on the eve of the hearings into applications in 2007, would not be regarded as fruitless expenditure as they “were not wasteful”.
This is debatable. The SABC, according to newspaper reports, stated that the reason for its withdrawal was that it wanted rather to be a content supplier to those awarded licences. Such a decision makes business and strategic sense for a public broadcaster and it seems that this conclusion could have been reached before submitting the application and incurring the costs of finalising the application. These costs, according to unconfirmed sources, included consulting fees which ran into millions.
Such apparent misjudgements are particularly concerning given recent expenditure hikes at the SABC as highlighted above.
The previous board has also been accused of wasting money in its extended and unsuccessful legal battle against the former SABC CEO Dali Mpofu. The board lost with costs a court challenge against its suspension of the CEO in May 2008 after the judge found that there had been procedural irregularities. It also lost an application to challenge the decision. Newspapers have estimated the costs incurred in the process as R5m – not counting the payout that the interim board granted to Mpofu when he finally left the broadcaster in mid 2009.
Joe Mjwara, previous head of broadcasting in the Department of Communications, said in an interview that one of the difficulties with the SABC is its sense of a lack of accountability on spending:
The SABC has tended to view the funds it collects through advertising and sponsorship as its money to do what it wants with. It does not recognise that it is accountable for the commercial revenue as this is collected through management of a public asset.
4. Conclusion and recommendations
The resolution of the public broadcasting funding conundrum is perhaps the core public broadcasting issue that needs to be resolved in South Africa.
As reflected above, funding issues have been at the heart of tussles over the role the public broadcaster should play in the country since the process of transformation of the SABC commenced in 1993. Various attempts and proposals to resolve the funding dilemma (by the regulator, government and the ruling party, among others) have not been successful in ensuring that the SABC is appropriately and adequately funded to meet its legislative mandate “in a manner that protects (it) from arbitrary interference” as required by Article 6 of the Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Instead the over-reliance on commercial income has meant that the broadcaster is forced to consider audience ratings over public need.
There are no quick fixes, however – and perhaps the failure of existing mechanisms can at least partly be ascribed to the apparent absence of a thorough and holistic economic analysis of the SABC’s needs and an in-depth review of the impact of different funding models.
The issues surrounding funding and autonomy are complex. It would be simplistic, for example, to reduce them to the maxim “s/he who pays the piper calls the tune”. The problems highlighted in this chapter cannot be solved just by insulating the SABC from its sources of funding. The SABC has often been seen to be ‘kow-towing’ to the ruling party (or particular cliques or individuals within the ANC) - despite government’s paltry contributions to the broadcaster.
Given all of this, it would be rash, based only on this research, to propose final solutions on the best funding mechanisms for public broadcasting in South Africa. Rather than recommend yet another set of seemingly ideal but untested models, it is recommended that an in-depth economic scoping exercise be conducted, including a review of the pros and cons of different models in the South African context. Such an evaluation should ensure the participation of all stakeholders in developing the best mechanisms for funding of public broadcasting in this country.
It will also be critical during this exercise to determine the actual needs of the SABC in relation to its mandate – and to ensure transparent accounting in order to build the necessary trust amongst the public, government and advertisers essential to securing its income. The predicted reduction in available advertising spend and the potential increase in the number of television licence fee defaulters given an economic downturn in the country also need to be noted.
Outlined below are some considerations that should guide this evaluation.
• The development of any model should be underpinned by the following principles:
o The need to protect the SABC from either perceptions or the reality of political or commercial interference or manipulation through funding.
o The imperative of enabling the public broadcaster to plan with certainty, whilst moderating demand-driven pressures for funding by the SABC
o The importance of establishing a durable and justifiable level of funding, taking into account new contexts such as the migration to digital broadcasting.
o The importance of maximising transparency – so that the SABC itself, other broadcasters and the public are aware of the motives for funding allocated by the state and through any fees/taxes paid by the public.
The research should be undertaken as part of a total review of all government and regulatory policies – including the Triple Inquiry Report, the White Paper on Broadcasting and the Broadcasting Act. The economic analysis of funding should be fed into any new policies and/or legislation to ensure that the mandate of the broadcaster is not only relevant but also viable both immediately and in a new digital environment. The overall review should include:
o Another look at proposals made in the Triple Inquiry Report to streamline the SABC and thus increase cost effectiveness. New opportunities arising from digital migration should be taken into account, such as the potential development of additional channels and mechanisms to assist the SABC to meet its mandate on, for example, delivery of programming in all official languages.
o A re-evaluation of the effectiveness of the separation of the SABC into public and public commercial arms. As noted above, a primary motivation for this division was to provide for cross-subsidisation of public broadcasting and thus reduce its reliance on commercial income. This, however, has not been effective.
Such evaluation must also reconsider the legal status of the SABC as, again, the original motivation for corporatisation was based on commercialising certain aspects of the broadcaster.
o A review of all relevant licence conditions and regulations in light of any new policy and legislative requirements. This should include an evaluation of programming requirements and of advertising limitations.
• A thorough analysis needs to be done of the actual funding needs of the SABC – given its mandate. Financial costs must be linked to public interest value and traceable to enhanced delivery of services. This could include a study into how other countries benchmark public broadcasting funding, taking into consideration not only inflation, but also possible new imperatives.
• A workable mechanism for evaluating and determining ongoing levels of funding for the broadcaster (and, for example, appropriate licence fees or other levies) and for the distribution of such funds needs to be devised. This should include an analysis of the pros and cons of both existing and alternative mechanisms in relation to the principles outlined above. This review could consider a number of options:
o The strengths, weaknesses and appropriateness of the existing mechanism of determining funding levels via the Board, Minister, Treasury and finally Parliament. The different roles of each structure and their capacity to effectively evaluate proposed budgets and spending should be analysed. Note must be taken of the fact that concerns regarding the capacity of parliamentarians to properly scrutinise and consider funding needs of institutions were highlighted as one of the shortcomings of the parliamentary allocation system by the ad hoc committee established to review oversight by the legislature of constitutional bodies.
o The pros and cons of adapting the present Parliamentary allocation system in order to strengthen the legislature’s role in determining appropriate levels of funding. The SABC budget and proposed allocation from government could, for example, be considered separately from that of any particular government department , as recommended by the ad hoc committee, and be tabled as part of the Speaker’s budget.
Parliament could also set funding levels for a set period (say five years) at the same time as determining a charter or remit for the broadcaster for that period.
In any case the capacity of Parliament to adequately determine appropriate funding levels should be assessed – alongside the potential in South Africa for the ruling party to influence funding amounts given its majority in the legislature.
o The advantages and disadvantages of establishing an independent public broadcasting agency/fund managed by an autonomous board responsible for assessing appropriate public funding (including government allocations and licence fees) for the SABC. The establishment of such an intermediary body has been proposed by the Southern African Broadcasting Association (SABA) in its policy document on public broadcasting in the region entitled On the move. Such a body could either set or make binding recommendations on funding allocations for the SABC to Parliament – thus ensuring an arms length funding relationship between government and the broadcaster. However, possible limitations associated with establishing another bureaucracy and the potential difficulties in attracting sufficient independent expertise on funding for broadcasters to such an entity would have to be carefully considered. South Africa already has examples of funding structures (such as the Universal Service and Access Agency) whose effectiveness is viewed with scepticism due to such shortcomings.
o The strengths and weaknesses of giving the responsibility of setting public funding amounts (government allocations and licence fees) to an existing agency such as the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA). It should be noted, however, that ICASA is viewed by some analysts as already overburdened and weak. The regulator could also be seen by the public broadcaster as competing with it for public funds, and questions about the appropriateness of regulating the SABC and the broadcasting sector as a whole whilst determining the funding levels of one licensee should be weighed up.
o The value/public benefit of supporting only the SABC through licence fee revenue over establishing a discretionary fund available on application to any broadcaster promoting public programming. Whilst this might not seem feasible, given the need to, for example, support the SABC’s drive for universal access, it is important to consider in order to again focus on why public funding is essential.
o Combinations of the above (and other mechanisms) could also be considered.
• Alongside discussion on mechanisms, it is also important to review the means of funding (i.e. licence fees, fiscal funding, commercial revenue, etc.) and the ratios of different revenue streams. Taking costs into account, a new funding model should be developed after thorough review of the effectiveness of existing and alternative sources of revenue:
o Ensuring inflation-linked increases of relevant revenue streams in line with purchasing power parity is critical. This should be built into any policy and law/regulation.
o The licence fee model should be evaluated and other possible options explored (in consideration of effectiveness and efficiency, collection costs and fairness). As noted above, other options include imposing a broadcasting tax collected as part of income tax, or via a tax on motor vehicles or as a levy on electricity. Another international model is a levy on audio-visual software and hardware which is distributed to the public broadcaster (Turkey). As all taxes are handed over to Treasury, a means of ring-fencing these funds would have to be developed should such options be viable.
o Should the current licence fee model be considered the most appropriate means of funding, suggestions from the SABC about establishing a Section 21 company to remove obligatory VAT payments on licence fees should be considered. Proposals on broadening the scope of who qualifies for an exemption/concession of fees should also be examined – alongside the recommendations on a government subsidy to cover these shortfalls.
o The value and impact of a tax/levy on other broadcasters or on advertising income in the media should be considered. This would need to take into account the effect of such a levy on the viability of broadcasting/media industry as a whole.
The SABC has reportedly included this as a possible new source of revenue in an as yet untabled proposal to Parliament. Such a tax, however, would only be viable if SABC’s dominance of adspend was reduced through strict limitations on advertising revenue at the Corporation. Other levies on broadcasters (including licence fees and contributions to the Universal Service Fund) would also have to be considered – and if necessary exemptions/reductions on these tariffs allowed.
In informal discussions during this research, several commercial broadcasters indicated that such an option would be worth exploring, as limiting the SABC’s share of adspend would potentially benefit them. Note that in some countries (such as Canada) spectrum fees paid by other operators are used as a source of funding for the public broadcaster.
o The extent and nature of funding from the fiscus should be evaluated. This should not, however, be a simplistic review of ratios (as proposed by the ANC), but be linked, for example, to public value deliverables and/or shortfalls in revenue:
♣ The feasibility of earmarking specific budget lines for funding by the fiscus (such as signal distribution and infrastructure, including preparation for digitalisation) should be considered. This would remove any perceptions of manipulation of funds by government. Specific programming, such as educational content, might also be considered for support.
♣ All existing funding and support from government (including advertising, sponsorship and in kind support) should be calculated so as to determine the precise current extent of the government subsidy. The possibility of including all such amounts in the fiscal allocation in order to promote transparency should be considered. This could reduce the potential for perceptions or accusations of interference in editorial independence by government.
♣ In her interview for this research, the then chairperson of the Board suggested that it might be worthwhile to explore spreading the fiscal allocation across the different government departments, rather than locating it in one unit. Thus, for example, each department could contribute a percentage of their budget towards realising the public mandate. Such options should be further explored.
o Concessions could also be considered such as an exemption from corporate tax or VAT (as proposed by the SABC).
• Finally, it is critical that mechanisms to ensure transparency are built in to any new model. Awareness of what criteria are used to determine funding levels and how the impact of this is measured, alongside specific mechanisms to promote accountability by the broadcaster, will ensure legitimacy of and support for any funding mechanisms. In line with this, specific proposals on how to ensure awareness of the funding process and on how the SABC should report on expenditure and progress against goals should be incorporated into any new policy/law. These could include the requirement, for example, to report on the percentages of funds allocated to programming for specific language groups – in order to enhance understanding of the value of public funding.
CHAPTER EIGHT: PROGRAMMING
Since the appointment of the first independent board in 1993 which marked the start of the SABC’s transformation from a state to a public broadcaster, programming has undergone major changes and great strides have been made to turn the former mouthpiece of the apartheid system into a full spectrum broadcaster giving a voice to the diversity of opinions, while promoting a common national identity.
In recent years, though, the SABC has been beset by controversies about its programming decisions, with criticism focussing especially on former Managing Director of News and Current Affairs, Snuki Zikalala, for being too close to the government and the ruling ANC. These criticisms intensified in 2006, when the SABC took a decision not to show a scheduled documentary on the-then President Mbeki. Allegations also surfaced of the existence of a politically motivated “blacklist”, where commentators critical of the government were reputedly excluded from SABC news and current affairs programmes. An internal commission of enquiry into the matter later found that such exclusions had indeed taken place on grounds that were not defensible in terms of journalistic norms and standards.
The SABC also attracted accusations of self-censorship when it withdrew a drama on circumcision entitled “Umthunzi weNtaba” after complaints from traditional leaders, and decided not to screen a documentary on satire on its current affairs programme “Special Assignment”.
The purpose of this chapter is to analyse whether the SABC’s programming is indeed complying with its public broadcasting mandate. It includes an analysis of the types of formats used on SABC stations, and whether they meet the requirement for the SABC to be a full spectrum broadcaster. The chapter also considers the adequacy of the SABC’s editorial policies, and particularly whether they comply with the principles of public broadcasting.
In order to test whether the SABC is providing programming that is in the public interest, the chapter includes a comparative analysis of two SABC stations (SABC 1 – TV -and Ukhozi FM - radio) and two commercial stations (e.tv and Talk Radio 702). The latter have, to different extents, built their brands on distinguishing themselves from the SABC and underlining their political independence. While the SABC’s blacklisting saga played itself out in the media, e.tv, for example, ran a series of advertisements promoting itself as a station that carried “zero per cent propaganda”.
1. Types of formats on SABC stations
Television
News and current affairs, incorporating panel formats and live transmission are dominant features of the schedule of all SABC television channels. On SABC 1, 30 minutes news services are offered at 17.30 in SiSwati and Ndebele and at 19.30 in isiZulu. SABC 2 has news in Tshivenda/ Tsonga at 17.30, in Afrikaans at 19.00 and in Sesotho and Sepedi at 20.30. On SABC 3, news is offered in English only at 19.00. SABC 3 is the only channel to offer a briefer (15 minutes) night news service (at 22.00).
The SABC’s flagship morning current affairs programme is flighted on SABC 2 from 6.00 to 8.00, and includes news. SABC 3 has a current affairs programme between 5.00 and 7.00 called “World Today”, with a strong focus on business news, market updates, and human interest stories.
The main current affairs programmes are shown on Sunday evening. SABC 1 offers an interactive panel show in IsiZulu called “Asikhulume” where viewers can phone in and pose questions to the panel. “Fokus” is broadcast in Afrikaans on SABC 2 and “Interface” on SABC 3; both make provision for viewer input via sms, but do not have a phone-in facility. SABC 1 offers a current affairs programme in African languages focussing on issues affecting the youth. SABC 3’s award winning investigative programme “Special Assignment” is flighted on Tuesdays. Other current affairs programmes include a programme summarising the most recent Parliamentary debates, and “180 degrees”, which is flighted on SABC News International as well.
Local and foreign human interest interactive talk shows are also offered on SABC television, including “3 Talk with Noeleen”, “Dr. Phil”, and the “Oprah Winfrey show”. Other formats include live transmission of various events, including sports events, films, music and variety programmes and dramas.
Local and foreign soaps are a very prominent feature of SABC television. The foreign soaps include American productions like “The Bold and the Beautiful” and “Days of our Lives”. Popular local soaps are “Isidingo”, “Generations”, “Muvhango”, and “7de Laan”.
Product placement, a covert form of advertising, is a new and controversial feature in some of the local soaps. Clover SA, a manufacturer of milk products, for instance, has secured a product placement deal with “7de Laan” and “Muvhango”, where in the words of the company “…the Clover brands are elaborately woven into plots with a Stimuli account executive [the below-the-line agency responsible for the product placement] ensuring the seamless integration of the product into the script”, leading to the creation of “consumption occasions” for its products.
The largest concentration of viewing for children is to be found on SABC 1. Between 06.00 and 07.00, children’s programming includes formats such as variety programmes, storytelling and news. A news programme called “Kid’s News” was introduced in March 2006, and targets children aged between eight and twelve; it aims to conscientise children about the world around them and relate current events to their lives.
Another children’s programme on SABC 1 uses the international format “Sesame Street” adapted for a South Africa setting. Called “Takalani Sesame”, the programme combines education and entertainment, and is a multimedia initiative designed to convey educational messages on numeracy, literacy and life skills to young children. “Magic Cellar” is another example of a children’s programme flighted on SABC 1. It is billed as Africa's first three dimensional animation production, and is intended “…to give African children an understanding of their own culture” through the medium of animation. According to the producers of the programme, Morula Pictures, the stories are based on African folktales, collected in part from interviews conducted with elders in villages across South Africa. Yet another children’s programme geared towards early childhood education is the “Molo Show”.
SABC 2 and SABC 3 offer a mix of local and foreign animated children's programmes such as “Care Bears”, “Fun Pack”, “Fun Factory”, “Superman” and “Ed, Eddy and Eddy”. Game show formats are also used for children”s programming. For instance, SABC 1 has a game show called “Kids are all right”, where adults are invited to compete against gifted children.
Variety programmes are also targeted at older children and young teenagers, mainly in the eight to thirteen bracket. YoTV, which is produced by large production house, Urban Brew, offers a variety of programmes such as YoTV Wildroom, which is an interactive variety show where six callers are invited to give inputs to shape the show, such as choosing videos and becoming involved in games.
SABC television also has educational programmes specifically for school learners. One of these, on SABC 1, is “Study Mate”, a support programme provided by the SABC in partnership with the Department of Education. It is an extension of the supplements provided by the Department, and is geared to helping final year pupils to prepare for their matric examinations. The format consists of daily lessons provided by teachers and curriculum specialists.
Radio
On radio, all stations have news, current affairs and informational programmes, some of which include phone-in programmes. Music and talk show formats tend to dominate the public commercial stations. Radio 2000 has struggled to identify its niche, but was repositioned in April 2008 to include a mix of music and public service content, and to prepare it for its role as the official SABC radio broadcaster for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The main format for the public service programmes are interviews combined with phone-in programmes.
The public commercial stations mostly opt for a contemporary hit radio format. 5 FM relies mainly on music programmes fronted by prominent disk jockeys, which may also include interviews and a live phone-in component, as well as humorous, controversial skits. Metro FM offers a mix of music and radio talk show formats, as well as a dedicated radio talk show on sport. Goodhope FM is described by the SABC as an interactive lifestyle radio station, which includes a mix of R&B, pop, ballads, contemporary jazz and dance and old school.
The SABC public service radio stations offer a mix of formats. Given that most of the African language radio stations claim to target the 16-49 age group in the main, they opt mostly (but not exclusively) for talk show and music formats.
• Ukhozi FM and Umhlobo Wenene offer news and current affairs, interactive phone-in talk shows, sport, weather and traffic. Music covers a spread of genres, including jazz, R&B, kwaito, house, gospel and African traditional.
• Lesedi FM offers news, information, talk and drama, as well as music appealing to the youth, as well as gospel and seSotho traditional and contemporary music.
• As Ligwalagwala FM seeks to target a younger, more upwardly mobile audience and its line-up offers news and current affairs, education (including phone-in learner support programmes), music and talk-show formats.
• Motsweding claims to be an highly interactive station, offering news, current affairs, music, phone-in programmes, education, sport, weather and traffic.
• Mughana Lonene and Phalaphala rely heavily on music and talk show formats (with the former offering 80 percent local music), while Thobela FM offers music, information, education and entertainment. Faith-based programmes, involving interviews with prominent religious leaders, are also included in many of the stations’ line-ups, as are public service announcements.
• As Tru FM aims to target a young upwardly mobile consumerist audience, it relies heavily on music and talk show formats.
English language SAfm relies heavily on talk radio shows hosted by popular anchors, with live interactive programming dominating the schedule. Afrikaans language Radio Sonder Grense uses similar formats, but plays more music than SAfm. Current affairs programmes of one to two hours duration, including live interviews with key newsmakers, are flighted in the morning, at lunchtime and in the afternoon. Lotus FM, targeting the Indian community, uses a music and talk-show format.
Channel Africa broadcasts on shortwave and the internet and calls itself “The Voice of the African Renaissance”. Its programme line-up is dominated by news and current affairs relevant to the African continent, interviews with prominent figures, and SABC informational material re-packaged for a wider, African audience. The station also has an infotainment programme called “Tam Tam Express”, which blends entertainment with serious political debate on the current issues of the day.
2. Programming/ editorial policies and guidelines of the SABC
The SABC has editorial policies, developed in terms of the Broadcasting Amendment Act promulgated in 2003. Initially, the Minister of Communications was meant to approve these policies, but after a public outcry about the impact this would have on the SABC’s editorial independence, this requirement was removed.
In terms of the Act, the SABC Board had to prepare and submit the policies to ICASA within three months of the date of conversion of the SABC to a public company. The policies are generally meant to ensure compliance with the SABC’s licence conditions and the Act’s objectives. More specifically they are supposed to contain the following: a news editorial policy, programming policy, local content policy, educational policy, universal service and access policy, language policy and religious policy. The Act also requires public participation in the development of these policies.
The SABC released draft editorial policies for public comment in April 2003 and convened public meetings in various provinces. There was a large public response. In total, 920 written submissions were received (of which 847 came from individuals and 73 from organisations). The final version was released in 2004, and is due to be revised. However, owing to the upheaval and changes at board and top management level described above, this revision had not yet been done at the time of writing.
The policies as they stand emphasise from the outset that one of the core editorial values of the SABC is editorial independence. This includes journalistic, creative and programming independence of the SABC’s staff and is necessary to protect the freedom of expression of the SABC’s audiences. The editorial code states that the SABC is independent from the government, and is not the mouthpiece of the government of the day.
The news policy commits the Corporation to providing news and current affairs that draws on the diversity of South Africans and the full spectrum of opinions, perspectives and comment. The policy states that the presentation of the full spectrum of opinion should also guide the selection of guests, analysts and specialist commentators, as they should be selected to represent the diversity of opinion in society. The policy further suggests that the SABC can use public opinion surveys to ensure that it remains in touch with wider public opinion.
The editorial code of the SABC explicitly states that “we do not allow advertising, commercial, political or commercial considerations to influence our editorial decisions”: a commitment that is repeated in the news, current affairs and information programming policy. The news policy commits the newsroom to develop internal guidelines to entrench its independence, and to deal with potential conflicts of interest.
News and current affairs programming is required to be fair and balanced, and not to take sides, although the policy cautions that “fairness does not require editorial staff to be unquestioning, nor the SABC to give every side of an issue the same amount of time”. The policy does make provision for a right of reply, when a damaging critique of an individual or institution has been presented.
In order to contributing to economic, social and cultural development by providing a credible forum for democratic debate, the editorial code commits the SABC to building a strong democracy by ensuring that listeners have access to relevant, reliable, and available facts.
However, the policies also commit the SABC to serving the national and the public interest: the former term has been controversial in South Africa, as it has been read by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) as inference to journalists to report uncritically on government performance.
While the policy on news and current affairs commits the SABC to evaluating, analysing and critically appraising government policies and programmes, it does not spell out an explicit watchdog role where the broadcaster holds those in power in every sector of society accountable.
The policies recognise that there may be a tension between providing a range of opinions on matters of public interest, and the offense that may be taken by sections of the audience at what they may find to be disturbing content. In this regard, the policies recognise that a Constitutional Court judgement specifically protects speech that shocks, disturbs and offends, and that the SABC must not censor such material. Such material is to be preceded by audience advisories and be screened at appropriate times during the watershed period.
However, as has been noted in Chapter 6, the controversial upward referral clause in the editorial policy, which gives the broadcaster’s chief executive the final say on editorial matters, can lead to commercial or political influences (or at the very least the perceptions of such) being brought to bear and unduly influencing editorial decisions.
In order to avoid such a blurring of competencies and safeguard the principle of editorial independence, the chairperson of the Interim Board, Irene Charnley, has reportedly decided to clearly distinguish the roles of Group Chief Executive Officer and Editor-in-Chief. As Business Day editor Peter Bruce has argued, “that’s just what was needed. Former GCEO Mpofu had both titles and was a disaster. The two jobs are entirely different. The Editor-in-Chief is there to protect the reputation of the organisation and its journalism. The GCEO is there to create a business platform for the journalists to do their jobs”. Accordingly, all references to editorial responsibility were stripped out of the advertised job description for the new GCEO, appointed in December 2009.
A key principle of freedom of expression recognised in the editorial policy is the right of journalists to protect their confidential sources of information. It further states that “if the protection of a source were to become a legal matter, the SABC would not advise its employees to refuse to obey a court order, but would make its legal counsel available for advice and to present legal arguments in court to protect the source”.
Freedom of expression is also recognised in other areas of the SABC’s editorial policies. The programming policy notes that freedom of expression is at the heart of the SABC’s programmes, and that this is necessary to provide programme makers with the space to innovate. In order to provide access to a wide range of information and ideas from various sectors of society, the programming policy states that the SABC aims to meet the needs of all its audience segments, including the young and old, urban and rural, and all languages and religions.
The SABC claims to take the interests of minority audiences, such as followers of minority religions, into account, but the policies do not make explicit mention of reflecting current social, political, philosophical, religious, scientific and artistic trends.
The programming policy further requires the SABC to contribute to nation building by providing spaces for the sharing of experiences and building a sense of national identity.
The language policy recognises the fact that if freedom of expression is to be advanced, then the public broadcaster must promote the right to receive and impart information in the languages of choice of viewers and listeners. It also emphasises the need to support development of South African languages as a contributor to national development and commits the SABC to address the marginalisation of indigenous languages by attempting to mainstream them in the Corporation’s programming.
The religious policy requires the SABC to contribute to a common South African-ness, as well as the moral regeneration of South Africa.
The editorial policies recognise the importance of promoting and developing local content. The local content policy commits the SABC to supporting the South African music and production industries by airing local content, which in turn “assists in furthering important public interest goals such as nation-building and reconciliation”. The policy further notes that the SABC is committed to meeting local content obligations as spelt out by the Broadcasting Act, which requires the SABC to develop and protect national and regional identity and display South African talent, as well as to offer a plurality of South African views.
To this end, the SABC is expected to support the production of local content, particularly by historically disadvantaged individuals, and to adhere to specific quotas for local television content, independent productions and South African music.
In line with these requirements, the SABC commits itself “to ensure that local television content is a significant and visible part of its schedules” in line with the quotas set by ICASA. These commitments must be taken into account when the SABC develops strategic plans, key performance indicators, business plans and budgets, and programming strategies.
The local content policy places heavy emphasis on meeting ICASA’s local content quotas, but sets a few additional requirements. With regard to radio, the SABC must publicise local musicians through interviews, reviews and promotion, and must further stage live events each year in partnership with South African artists.
With respect to television, the policy commits the SABC to showcasing television content from the African continent, especially on the public service television channels. A separate policy and set of procedures on procurement of local content, which would detail the SABC’s policies and procedures, is to be developed. This has since been done and local content is being commissioned and acquired by the SABC’s Content Hub. The policy commits the SABC to engaging with the industry to support the development and transformation of the local production industry.
The policy notes the difficulties the SABC faces in implementing all these requirements, given the high cost of local content relative to foreign content, and also the challenges faced by its mixed funding base that require it to consider questions of commercial viability.
The editorial policies also have a section on universal service and access. This notes that the broadcaster has obligations to redress past imbalances in programming, and to work towards making its services available throughout South Africa. In order to give effect to the requirements of the Broadcasting Act to achieve universal service and access, the policy identifies particular aims, which include ensuring the following:
• that every South African has access to a broadcasting service;
• that the radio services provide a wide range of programming in every official language;
• that audiences have access to a range of radio services in a variety of languages (which, the SABC admits, is a longer-term goal);
• that at least two public service television channels, offering a range of programming in a variety of languages, are available in 90 per cent of the country.
The policy notes that convergence presents a range of new challenges for universal service and access, and that digital migration should not lead to viewers being cut off from the broadcasting signal entirely. It also requires SABC management to develop an annual local content action plan, outlining the goals and resources required.
3. Types of programmes on other broadcasters
This section considers the extent to which non-SABC broadcasters provide public interest programming, and focuses specifically on e.tv and Radio 702. Public interest programming could be defined as programming that is informative, educational, enhances governance (including the electoral process), encourages political discourse and engagement in local community affairs, and serves sections of the audience that are often neglected, such as children, minorities and individuals with disabilities.
E.tv
As mentioned in chapter four, e.tv is licenced as a broad spectrum station, and has significant South African content obligations. According to e.tv’s licence, the station’s predominant language of broadcast is English, but the station is required to provide two hours of news and information programming per week in a wide range of official languages other than English, and reflecting local, regional and provincial events and developments. The licence conditions forbid the excessive use of a single language, other than English. Overall the station is required to broadcast nineteen hours of information programming per week, and four hours of programming in languages other than English.
E.tv is also meant to broadcast two and a half hours of South African drama a week, of which at least two hours and twenty minutes should be in prime time. At least ten per cent of the aggregate broadcasting time of South African drama must be broadcast in languages other than English, providing that a single language does not dominate programming. With regard to children’s programming, at least sixteen hours of programming must be broadcast per week during times when large numbers of children are likely to be watching. Twenty per cent should be in languages other than English, providing that a single language does not dominate.
The station is required to commission programming from different provinces, to reflect provincial diversity, cultures and characters. Of the 45 per cent local content it is required to carry in prime time, only 15 per cent should be repeats. E.tv is also required to broadcast animations reflecting African and South African culture and lifestyles, programming which is meant to promote South African culture and talent.
Repeated requests were made to obtain the station’s editorial policy for news and current affairs for the purposes of this research – unfortunately to no avail. Therefore, an analysis of the station’s policy was not possible.
E.tv’s schedule starts with “Morning News Today”, which runs from 6.00 am to 8.00 Monday to Friday and covers politics, sport, business, health, entertainment, weather and traffic updates. Viewers are encouraged to interact with the programme’s hosts by phoning in. At 8.00 a 30-minutes African language edition of the news is offered. E.tv also broadcasts a 13.00 half-hour roundup of the main news stories, entitled “News Day”. At 18.00 the station broadcasts another half-hour news bulletin in African languages, and the main English-language news bulletin (“News Prime Time”) follows at 19.00.
E.tv’s flagship current affairs programme is called “Third Degree”, and is inextricably linked in the public mind with its presenter, Deborah Patta, whose forthright interviewing style has been criticised for being “unobjective”, “immature” and “aggressive”. Patta has been at pains to distinguish the approach of e.tv’s news and current affairs division from that of the SABC, which, she maintains, panders to those in positions of authority. According to Patta:
Our reporters, camera operators and video editors are well-trained, professional journalists, as such are highly sought after. As a general rule, we refrain from employing SABC journalists because they tend to lack a proper understanding of journalism and ethics. We pride ourselves on developing fresh talent and practicing independent journalism that holds no one's brief. SABC journalists often behave like government spokespeople, and that's why the flow is generally in their favour and not vice versa. We could employ many of their journalists but we simply don't want to.
“Third Degree” has been known to address controversial topics that the SABC appeared reluctant to tackle, in the process providing an important counterpoint to SABC current affairs. For instance, the programme flighted a controversial documentary on the Thabo Mbeki era and Aids deaths, made originally for the SABC’s “Special Assignment”. ‘Entitled “The Prince of Denial”, the documentary investigated the impact of the former President’s Aids denialist policies on ordinary South Africans living with the virus. The producers claimed the SABC took too long to make a decision about flighting the programme, and they eventually decided to offer it to e.tv instead.
A relatively new addition to the station’s line-up, which would certainly qualify as public interest content, is “The Big Debate”. The programme was launched in February 2009 and follows a “town-hall style” debating format, recorded in various parts of the country. Panellists are required to interact with audiences, which give audiences direct access to decision-makers. Programmes have included debates on corruption, leadership, black economic empowerment, media freedom, service delivery and other topics. What is noteworthy is that the programme is not funded directly by e.tv, but by philanthropic organisations the Open Society Foundation, Atlantic Philanthropies and the Ford Foundation.
Soaps – both foreign and local - occupy prominent places on the station’s schedule. E.tv’s two local soaps “Rhythm City” and “Scandal” are strongly youth and entertainment-orientated, with little apparent public interest content (although both are partly multilingual). Foreign soaps include “Silk Stalkings”, “The Young and the Restless” and “Sunset Beach”.
E.tv also has a number of children’s programmes, including “Cool Catz”, which is described by the station as “a funky, fun studio based show” targeting a pre-school audience, and includes a mixture of animation and real life acting.
Other programmes that feature prominently on e.tv are American productions like “Judge Judy”, “America’s Next Top Model”, “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” and “Cheaters”. The station’s schedule during the day is heavily dominated by infomercials, especially in the morning, and repeats of other programmes, especially e.tv’s own soaps.
Talk Radio 702
Talk Radio 702 is a commercial station broadcasting on FM in the Gauteng province, and is also available via webcast. It is a broad spectrum station, but focuses especially on news, sport, business and actuality programming, as well as phone-in debates. The station started out as a Top 40 music format station in 1980, but as demand for independent news grew, it evolved into a 24-hour news-based and talk-show format station, and pioneered “702 eyewitness news”, a service encouraging listeners to phone in news. Full news bulletins are broadcast every hour and headlines every half-hour. The station used to broadcast on the AM frequency, but was granted a licence to broadcast on FM in 2007 after the station won the argument with ICASA that it was being prejudiced by lack of access to an FM frequency.
The station’s licence conditions are very straightforward. The station is described as a talk-based service in English, with a maximum of 15 per cent of music programming. Its licence requires it to broadcast news every hour daily, and its news services must include news material from sources other than itself. The station does not have an editorial policy, and claims to be guided by its licence conditions and the BCCSA’s Code of Conduct.
Talk Radio 702 has built its brand on independent journalism and been praised for its news agenda-setting interviews and responsiveness to current events. In 2007 BBC Africa awarded 702 the title of ‘Radio Station of the Year’, for its showcasing of the first African film to win an Oscar, a press conference involving Jacob Zuma and a Johannesburg Town Forum ahead of the 2006 Municipal Elections.
4. Analysis of programmes
Programme schedules for the week of 2 to 8 November 2009, from 6.00 to midnight, were analysed for the following stations: e.tv, SABC 1, Talk Radio 702 and Ukhozi FM. The purpose of the analysis was to help pinpoint the differences, if any, between the programming and programming priorities of the two public SABC stations and the two private broadcasters by answering three main questions:
• What are the predominant programme formats/genres on the major radio/TV stations?
• What are the predominant languages in which radio/TV programmes are broadcast?
• What is the ratio of local to foreign content on major radio/TV stations?
E.tv
The station devoted most time on weekdays to drama/ comedies (up to 5 hours per day), followed by news and current affairs. Movies and sport dominated the weekend schedules. Dramas offered were both local and foreign productions in roughly equal measure. Two local dramas (“Rhythm City” and “Scandal”) were repeated between 9.00 and 10.00, but the foreign programmes were not. The local dramas contained a mix of English and African languages.
News bulletins accounted for 130 minutes of the schedule on weekdays, and 35 minutes over weekends. English news dominated; where African languages were featured, three African languages were grouped together in the same programme (Zulu, Xhosa and Sotho). No current affairs programmes were offered over the weekend.
Other frequently featured genres included children’s programmes, sport and quiz/ game/ reality shows. Sports programming became more prominent over the weekend, while quiz/ game/ reality shows were offered predominantly on weekdays. Fifty percent of children’s programming was local. A large amount of sports programming was devoted to WWE wrestling games - difficult to classify strictly as sport as they are in fact a blend of sport and entertainment genres.
E.tv also carried adult content over the weekend on its late night slots.
The schedule contained very few programmes focusing on youth and women. Educational programmes, culture/ media/ arts programmes and faith-based programmes were rare. A 30 minutes faith based programme was shown on Saturday, but very early in the morning (at 06.00), when viewer numbers would be very low. Faith-based programming became more prominent on Sunday, with a total airtime of 210 minutes. Most faith-based programmes focused on the Christian religion.
Movies were offered mostly over the weekend, accounting for 210 minutes on Friday, 360 minutes on Saturday, and 330 minutes on Sunday. All movies were foreign productions.
Infomercials were also featured at different times during the day, especially in the morning.
Overall, e.tv’s programmes were predominantly local during weekdays, with locally produced material constituting 52 per cent of the programming monitored. Local content decreased considerably over the weekend, owing to the prominence of foreign movies, with a mere 23 per cent of programming being local. In total, 38 per cent of e.tv’s programming over the period was local (the local content quota prescribed by ICASA is 35 per cent).
SABC 1
SABC 1’s programme schedule was notably more varied than e.tv’s, and included news, current affairs, dramas (including soaps), music shows, quiz/ game shows, talk shows, educational programmes, children’s programming, youth programming, sports, faith-based programming and infomercials. Repeats featured quite prominently, accounting for 32 per cent of the schedule on Monday alone. Most programmes were local, with the station achieving an 85 per cent local content rate on the weekdays monitored, and an 87 per cent local content rate over the weekend: well above the station’s local content quota of 55 per cent.
The single biggest genre on the schedule was drama/ comedy, with many programmes being repeats. Six of the nine programmes in this genre were local, most of them in English, while others were presented in a mix of English, Zulu, Xhosa and Sesotho.
The next most prominent genres, especially on weekdays, were children’s and educational programmes with between seven and ten such programmes being run, accounting for between 208 and 238 minutes each day. Most of these were local, and all of them save one were entirely in English. The exception, “Takalani Sesame”, a local adaptation of the US-American “Sesame Street”, contained a mix of English, Zulu, Xhosa and Sesotho.
Three news programmes (Isiswati/Ndebele news, Zulu news and news for children) accounted for 90 minutes of the schedule each weekday. “Kid’s News” was particularly noteworthy for its multilingual content in English, Zulu, Sesotho, Xhosa and Venda.
There are a number of talk-based current affairs programmes, most of them also shown as repeats. The Thursday schedule contained the relatively new current affairs programme “Cutting Edge”, which was repeated on the following Tuesday. The programme was described by the SABC at the time of its launch as “…an investigative programme for Africans produced by Africans in African languages”. Yet the programme schedule referred to the programme as being in English.
Music accounted for between 60 and 90 minutes per day, with a range of musical tastes being catered to - from choral music to youth dance styles and the most popular music of the week.
There were just over an hour of infomercials a day.
There were no faith programmes during weekdays, with the exception of a repeat of “Spirit Sundae” on Wednesday, and brief reflections for a period of two minutes. However, 150 minutes were devoted to faith-based programmes on Sunday, spanning a variety of faiths.
Sports programming featured most prominently over the weekend, accounting for 223 minutes on Saturday and 251 minutes on Sunday. Sports programming during the week (one or two slots each day) focused primarily on soccer. Friday’s sports magazine programme “Sports Buzz” covered a variety of sporting codes.
Programming aimed specifically at women was entirely absent from the schedule, as was programming focusing on culture, media and the arts. SABC 1 also fared badly when it came to flighting fresh, contemporary movies, especially local productions. No movies were featured during the week while Friday’s and Saturday’s movies were old and oft-repeated US-American action films.
Talk Radio 702
The station’s programming followed a standard format during weekdays. From Monday to Friday, the schedule was dominated largely by news and current affairs (420 minutes), all in English, with news accounting for 120 minutes. Chat shows made up 540 minutes of the schedule and covered mostly human interest and lifestyle topics, blended with some current affairs content.
Infomercials were run every hour and a total of 234 minutes per day was spent on advertising.
The weekend format was very different, and focused more on music - especially Saturday (a total of 840 minutes), with a predominance of “solid gold” tracks as well as jazz - and phone-in programmes. The Sunday schedule contained less music (540 minutes in total), again mostly “solid gold” material. The day began with a four-hour breakfast show which focused on news, sports, business, entertainment, health and personal finance, and ended with a faith-based programme. According to the station’s programme schedule, this programme “offers a non-denominational but multi-dimensional approach to philosophic, moral and religious topics and issues drawn from our daily lives”.
Ukhozi FM
The programme line-up of the isi-Zulu language station Ukhozi FM was much more varied than that of Radio 702, offering news, sports, talks shows and features with a specific focus on government delivery of basic services like water and electricity and the work of municipalities in this regard, drama, curriculum support for learners, educator support, educational programming on personal finance, local and international music, health programming and public service announcements.
Music accounted for 140 minutes of the schedule on most weekdays, occupying slots in the morning, at lunchtime, and late at night. More space was given to music from Friday evening onwards to Sunday.
There was a considerable amount of women’s programming, with three slots daily totalling 105 minutes.
The station had five minute news updates every hour, as well as a 25-minutes current affairs programme at lunchtime on weekdays. Talk shows on topical issues were offered several times a week as was a daily drama series of 35 minutes duration. Sport was another regular feature of the schedule, with a daily prime time slot between 19:05 and 19:30. A weekend sports review was broadcast every Monday.
The following conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of programme schedules:
• The schedules of both TV stations are dominated by dramas/ comedies, especially ‘soaps’, with SABC 1 carrying more local dramas than e.tv. Both channels tend to repeat soaps, with such repeats being particularly evident on SABC 1.
• SABC 1 generally broadcasts far more local content than e.tv.
• SABC 1’s line-up is distinctly different from e.tv’s, with the public broadcaster offering a much greater variety of programming. SABC 1 also seems to be more adventurous in pushing the boundaries of various genres (“Kid’s News” being a case in point). E.tv’s programming was heavily entertainment-orientated, and its schedule was particularly thin when it came to genres often associated with public interest television, such as youth programming, women’s programming, educational programming, and programming on arts, culture and media.
• Both TV stations devote a considerable amount of time to news and current affairs, but SABC 1 is particularly strong on news in African languages.
• Local films are notably absent from the line-ups of both stations, which tend to rely on older and very familiar foreign films.
• Both stations offer little to nothing in the documentary genre.
• With respect to faith-based programming, SABC 1 has a greater focus on interfaith programming and faiths other than Christianity, whereas e.tv’s line-up is biased towards the Christian faith.
• As a full spectrum radio station, Ukhozi FM has a greater variety of programming than Radio 702, which is a talk format station.
• Ukhozi FM has a particularly strong focus on women, learners and educators.
• Ukhozi FM has insufficient slots for in-depth news and current affairs.
• Radio 702 offers little for groups who are vulnerable to marginalisation by commercial programming, such as women, children and the youth.
In regard to news and current affairs programmes the following general observations were made:
• There was virtually no international news on the public broadcasting stations SABC 1 and Ukhozi FM. Commercial stations e.tv and Talk Radio 702 carried international stories but not to any significant extent. No current affairs programme covered international events.
• SABC 1 and Ukhozi FM had a strong focus on development news during the week, with many slots devoted to stories on the delivery (or lack of delivery) of basic services by the various arms of government. Such stories were noticeably absent in the news programmes of e.tv and Talk Radio 702.
• All stations exhibited a tendency to rely mainly on official and expert sources for their sound bites, although SABC 1 showed a more consistent trend towards a greater diversity of sources, especially in the coverage of development related stories.
• SABC 1 and Ukhozi FM demonstrated a greater sensitivity towards regional sources of news and information over the period monitored, but the bulk of news across all stations was sourced from Gauteng and the Western Cape.
• Ukhozi FM news bulletins focused on development-related stories and provincial events and their current affairs programmes veered towards infotainment. Many of the main national stories of the week were not covered.
5. Audience research
An audience research survey published in April 2009 by the Steadman Group focused on audience behaviour and attitudes towards radio and television broadcasters. A face to face, quantitative survey was conducted using a fully structured questionnaire. The sample size was 1500, selected to be representative of the South African population.
The survey found that radio and television set penetration was roughly level, with nine out of 10 households possessing sets. According to the results, 78 per cent of South Africans use television “daily or most days” as their source for news and current affairs, 62 per cent use radio, 31 per cent newspapers and 17 per cent the internet. 44 per cent of respondents said radio was their “preferred source”, while 28 per cent chose television, 11 per cent newspapers and seven per cent the internet.
Asked if they had ever listened to public radio stations, 84 per cent of the respondents said they had. The public radio stations that most respondents claimed to have ever listed to are Metro FM at 38 per cent, Ukhozi (31 per cent), Umhlobo Wenene (28 per cent), SAfm (21 per cent) and 5 FM (20 per cent). Among those who listen to these stations, Metro FM was accorded the highest satisfaction rating of 41 per cent, followed by Ukhozi FM and Umhlobo Wenene FM at 33 per cent and 29 per cent respectively; SAfm had 22 per cent, and 5 FM and Motsweding tied at 21 per cent each. Commercial radio stations were listened to by 61 per cent; those with fair satisfaction levels based on the “somewhat satisfied” and “very satisfied” ratings are Khaya FM (27 per cent), YFM (26 per cent) and Jacaranda FM (26 per cent). Community radio stations by their very nature score lower overall listenership figures. Only 31 per cent said they had ever listened to any of these stations. Of these, Jozi FM enjoyed a satisfaction level of 31 per cent and the station closest to it was Soshanguve at 11 per cent.
With respect to the reasons for listening, 58 per cent of the respondents strongly agreed that they listened to radio for entertainment, with 56 per cent listening for information about “country news and events” and 52 per cent for educational reasons. Respondents also rated “politics”, “local music” and “family affairs” as reasons for listening to radio. With respect to programme preference, about a third mentioned “local news”, with others mentioning “local music”, “religious programmes” and “international music”. Key areas requiring more airtime in the opinion of respondents include health and well-being, entertainment, local and African culture programmes as well as faith issues.
Respondents noted significant differences in types of programming between community, public and commercial radio. In their view community radio demonstrated strong emphasis on human rights, local sports, children’s issues and local politics. Commercial radio, however, tended to de-emphasise such issues, with public radio pursuing a middle path.
With respect to ratings on independence, public radio was considered to be less independent than commercial or community broadcasting services. 61 per cent of respondents felt that public radio was not controlled by the government, compared to 69 per cent for commercial radio and 70 per cent for community radio. In spite of the fact that public radio scored relatively low on its independence rating, 50 per cent of respondents felt strongly that these stations provided accurate information that they trusted and believed, with a further 24 per cent of respondents agreeing somewhat with this statement. Regions showing the greatest confidence in public radio were KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, with an agreement rating of over 80 per cent, whereas those with the least confidence came from the Eastern Cape and Western Cape.
The majority of respondents (80 per cent) felt that community radio provided the widest variety of programmes in local languages followed by public radio services (73 per cent) and commercial stations (68 per cent). Three quarters of listeners say that all types of radio stations offer a wide variety of programmes.
With respect to television, the channel with the highest ‘top of mind’ awareness was SABC 1 which is known by nine out of every ten people in urban and rural areas. Spontaneous awareness of the other public stations, SABC 2 and SABC 3, was above 70 per cent, but these are more “top of mind” in urban areas. The most well-known commercial channel was e.tv, with an 80 per cent spontaneous awareness score, while subscription services DSTV and MNET scored 38 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.
Four out of five people who have ever watched SABC1 continued to do so on a regular daily basis while over half of SABC2 and SABC3 viewers also claimed to have watched the stations “yesterday”. E.tv was watched by two-thirds of its audience on a daily basis; it is more popular than SABC 2 and 3 in KwaZulu-Natal, but lost out to them in Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and North West provinces.
Most respondents (65 per cent) watch television for entertainment, followed by wishing to be updated about current events (64 per cent), and education (55 per cent). Politics, humour, relationship matters, local music, religious affairs and controversial issues were also common reasons cited for watching television.
Respondents said they would like to see more entertainment (53 per cent), programming on faith issues (41 per cent), health and wellbeing (39 per cent), African culture (33 per cent) and local culture (29 per cent). Both men and women felt that programmes based on entertainment and faith issues needed more airtime. Female respondents advocated for more programming on health and wellbeing, local and African culture and customs. Urban dwellers more than their rural counterparts wished to see more coverage of local, African and global politics as well as human rights topics.
With respect to satisfaction levels, SABC 1 (69 per cent) and e.tv (60 per cent) received the highest ratings. Two-thirds of the respondents feel that both public and private television provide adequate local news. Public television achieved a particularly high ranking for educational programming (87 per cent), compared to private television (78 per cent). 55 per cent of SABC viewers say they are satisfied with that broadcaster’s promotion of local drama compared with 43 per cent for commercial television. 48 per cent of SABC viewers said that SABC is reflecting local culture and way of life compared with 38 per cent for commercial TV.
62 per cent of respondents felt that SABC is independent from government compared with 68 per cent for commercial television. In regard to impartiality and credibility, both types of television are seen by a majority as trustworthy: 72 per cent of respondents judge SABC’s news as “impartial”, with slightly more (74 per cent) of e.tv viewers giving that assessment for the commercial broadcaster. Asked whether the news are “accurate” and could be trusted and believed, 74 per cent of SABC viewers and 76 per cent of e.tv viewers agreed.
Most respondents (81 per cent) felt that the most acceptable method of funding the public broadcaster was through commercial sources such as advertising. This was followed by 79 per cent of respondents who felt that state funding was justified, whereas 67 per cent felt that the broadcaster should be funded from licence fees. Most said that all three options should be combined.
Regarding trustworthiness, the public broadcaster was slightly more trusted than its private competition. 57 per cent of respondents gave public television a score of 5 or 4 out of 5, as did 56 per cent for public radio; with the figures being 54 per cent and 51 per cent for the commercial TV and radio broadcasters respectively.
6. Feedback and complaints procedures
According to the Broadcasting Amendment Act of 2002, the SABC must provide suitable means for regular inputs of public opinion on its services and ensure that such public opinion is given due consideration. The Act also requires the SABC to ensure that there is public participation in the development of its editorial policies, and to invite and consider public inputs in this regard. To this end, several stations offer blogs where listeners can post comments. The SABC also has discussion forums on all of its stations and channels. Apart from these measures, it is not clear how the SABC goes about ensuring that regular inputs from the general public are indeed received and taken up.
The SABC is a signatory to the codes of conduct of the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa (BCCSA), which receives complaints on broadcast content, and the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which receives complaints on advertisements aired. With respect to the BCCSA, the SABC carries promotional material regularly on all services across radio and television, in all official languages, to remind audiences about their rights and obligations in terms of the BCCSA Code of Conduct and the process for lodging complaints.
In addition to this, complaints are sometimes received directly by the SABC and dealt with internally by the Public and Regulatory Affairs division. The SABC claims that it strives in all instances to have a 72-hour turnaround on all complaints received, unless more detailed investigation is required. Suggestions received regarding programme content are referred to the relevant channel or content provider for consideration.
The SABC keeps a detailed record of every complaint received, how it was handled and the eventual outcome. Its annual report gives a summary of the number of complaints received annually.
According to the 2008/9 annual report, a total of 112 complaints against SABC services were received and finalised by the BCCSA. Of these complaints, 106 were dismissed. The SABC was found to be in contravention in six cases. Nine complaints were received by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), and one case was heard by the CCC of ICASA (the FXI complaint into the alleged blacklisting of commentators). While the annual report notes that the SABC did receive internal complaints, it does not give any details or figures.
7. Conclusions and recommendations
The SABC has made significant strides in realising its mandate of being a full spectrum broadcaster, providing information, education and entertainment, in spite of its funding challenges. The broadcaster has excelled in certain programming areas, such as children’s programming. The SABC also offers predominantly local fare, and has created an appetite for local content among its audience. However, it should be noted that the commissioning of local content has been heavily affected by the financial crisis at the broadcaster, leading to production houses retrenching staff or even closing down.
The SABC has also developed an impressive set of editorial policies using a consultative process that helped to build public ownership of the document. The policies largely capture the principles of public broadcasting.
In the area of news and current affairs the SABC offers distinctive programming that sets it apart from its commercial counterparts. In its choice of material it is relatively more sensitive to regional dynamics, and gives more attention to rural audiences and women. Development-orientated news and programming, and news focussing on service delivery questions, is also taken more seriously by the SABC compared to its commercial counterparts. Of all broadcasters only the SABC comes close to doing justice to programming in African languages. These differences are noted and appreciated by audiences, as the findings of the audience research show.
In spite of these positive findings, given the skewing – deliberately and openly so - of a large part of SABC programming towards audiences in the upper income brackets, it is doubtful whether all South Africans are indeed finding their experiences represented on the public broadcaster. Formats and genres that prioritise the tastes of the young and upwardly mobile are very prominent. The evolution of story lines in dramas such as “Muvhango” and “Isidingo” away from grittier reflections of South African life, and towards being aspirational showcases for middle class lifestyles, raises questions about the inclusive nature of the local content the SABC is championing.
The SABC is also bedevilled by editorial timidity, which detracts from its efforts to offer distinctive, cutting edge public service programming, in particular with regard to potentially controversial or politically sensitive issues. Yet this has not detracted from many listeners and viewers recognising the central role of the broadcaster in their lives.
Recommendations
The following recommendations may assist in ensuring that the SABC meets its programming mandate:
• So far the regulator, ICASA, has not publicly released any report on the SABC’s compliance with its licence conditions, so there is no way of verifying objectively whether the broadcaster is meeting its programming mandate. ICASA must be made to account to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications as to why it has not released these reports, and must be put on terms to finalise and release them. It also emerged in October 2009 that ICASA did not have a monitoring system in place to check whether the SABC was complying with its local content quotas, and instead relied on monitoring reports from the SABC itself. The regulator must be called to account for allowing this problem to drag on for so long. It must introduce clear regulations to deal with the commissioning of local content as soon as possible, and the extent of delivery on local content obligations must be evaluated.
• The SABC’s editorial policies are due to be revised. The broadcaster needs to undertake widespread consultation on its new policies, following a public review of the extent to which it delivered on its existing policies. In order to bring the policies into line with the principles of public broadcasting, the following changes should be considered:
o The policies need to include a strong statement on the watchdog role of SABC news, as the current formulation may be read as encouraging a form of journalistic practice that stops short of holding the powerful to account
o There needs to be a stronger emphasis on the needs of poor and marginalised audiences, who are often neglected by commercial services.
o The policies need to make more explicit reference to programming needing to reflect current social, political, philosophical, religious, scientific and artistic trends.
o As outlined earlier, there is a need to reconsider the conflation of the GCEO and the Editor-in-Chief roles. Given the recent history of controversy over editorial decisions, it is clear that the current arrangement is not working, as it opens editorial decision making on controversial programming up to political and commercial influence. In order to rebuild the editorial integrity of the broadcaster, the two positions should be separated.
• The programme analysis in this chapter pointed to some weaknesses in the programming of the SABC. The following recommendations are made in this regard:
o While the SABC’s editorial policies commit the broadcaster to freedom of expression, practice does not follow policy. The SABC seems to have great trouble in stomaching controversial programming. In this regard, the editorial policies should simply be implemented.
o Half the time devoted to drama is being used for repeats. This is unacceptably high and limits innovation in this popular genre.
o Product placement should be either banned or clearly marked as such.
o The SABC should commission more children’s programmes in African languages, to avoid an unhealthy dominance of English in this genre.
o The SABC needs to give serious consideration to giving more support to the local film industry, rather than using its channels to flight out-of-date foreign films.
o The lack of documentaries and features on the SABC’s schedule is a significant weakness that needs to be addressed, and such programmes should be prioritised for public funding. At the very least, the SABC should urgently direct existing resources towards this neglected genre.
o Ukhozi FM, which is extremely popular and plays a key informational role for its listeners, needs to give serious consideration to more in-depth news and current affairs slots, to enable the broadcaster to air topical issues adequately.
• The news and current affairs analysis pointed to a number of weaknesses that need to be addressed:
o The paucity of international news on SABC 1 and Ukhozi is worrying, and further monitoring should establish the extent to which this is a general problem across SABC services. The SABC will not serve the informational needs of it audiences without adequate coverage of international events. Current affairs programmes on topical international issues should also be included in the programme line-ups.
o The SABC needs to pay particular attention to ensuring adequate coverage of controversial issues. If SABC news in particular is to restore its editorial integrity in the wake of bruising controversies, then it needs to report robustly on such issues.
o SABC stations should resist the tendency of relying predominantly on official and expert sources. They should take care to promote a diversity of sources.
o SABC stations should place more emphasis on sourcing news from outside Gauteng and the Western Cape. The broadcaster has a huge news machine at its disposal, and this could be used to promote a de-centralisation of the news agenda.
o At the same time, stations such as Ukhozi FM, with a large footprint in a particular region, should resist the temptation to broadcast regional news only. Such an approach will lead to audiences being ill-informed about stories of national and international importance.
o In short: SABC news needs to strike a more appropriate balance between international, regional and local news.
CHAPTER NINE: PERCEPTIONS OF AND EXPECTATIONS TOWARDS THE SABC
The purpose of this chapter is to assess how the public broadcaster is being perceived by various role players in the country and what they expect from its services. A particular focus is placed on their interpretations of the problems besetting the SABC, the causes of the problems, as well as proposed solutions.
The public debate on these issues gained additional momentum when the Minister of Communications gazetted a highly controversial Public Service Broadcasting Bill on 28 October 2009. (The bill will be examined more closely in chapter 10.)
1. Political parties
For reasons of space only the views of the top four political parties are discussed here (that is, the four parties which scored the most votes in the 2009 national elections). Other political parties have also been vocal on – and more often than not critical of - the performance of the SABC. They include the Independent Democrats (ID), the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) and - although it is not a registered political party – the ANC alliance partner, the South African Communist Party (SACP).
African National Congress
The ANC has developed a systematic critique of the SABC since 2002, when it formulated a media policy for its 51st National Conference. In this policy, the party took a long range view, arguing that the SABC had made great strides in transforming itself from a state to a public broadcaster. However, in the party’s view the commercial nature of its funding base hampered further transformation. The policy argued for the need to establish a publicly funded media system by the year 2012. This model was necessary “in order for the public and community media to serve as vehicles to articulate the needs of the poor, rural people, women, labour and other marginalised constituencies”.
The party’s critique of public broadcasting for its next national conference in 2007 was not nearly as categorical on the need for a publicly funded media system, although it did reiterate its argument for public funding to be made available for the SABC. To this end, the conference resolved that public funding should be increased from the current two per cent to as much as 60 per cent by 2010, to enable the public broadcaster to fulfil its mandate properly. The ANC also resolved that the SABC should increase its support for local content that is consistent with the values of the Constitution, and that it should focus especially on women, the disabled and the youth. Furthermore the President should ensure that future SABC boards be broadly representative of the South African population.
Given the perceptions of close associations between the ANC and the SABC during former President Thabo Mbeki’s term of office, the ANC under Zuma’s presidency has been very vocal in its criticisms of the SABC News and Current Affairs Department, accusing its then-Managing Director Snuki Zikalala of failing to understand the broadcaster’s mandate, and calling for the non-renewal of his contract. His contract was, in fact, not renewed. The Zuma-led ANC also supported the removal of the board appointed by Mbeki in 2007, and their replacement by an interim board to stabilise the operations of the SABC and to restore a measure of proper corporate governance over the broadcaster.
Democratic Alliance
The DA’s main concern with the SABC has been what it perceives to be its closeness to the ANC, rather than a critique of the broadcaster’s funding base, and its impact on the public service mandate. In 2006, the party labelled the broadcaster the “propaganda arm of the ANC”, which it considered symptomatic of a broader contempt of press freedom displayed by the ANC. The DA has criticised executive appointments for being motivated by the ANC’s desire to control the SABC, rather than by a concern for competence. This, it said, led to skewed coverage in the broadcaster’s news, designed to protect the ANC from embarrassment. The DA also opposed the removal of the 2007 board as a politically inspired power grab by the ANC, while being extremely critical of the performance of the management. More recently the DA has supported the privatisation of the SABC as a solution to its woes, and has opposed the granting of a government guarantee to enable the broadcaster to borrow money.
Inkatha Freedom Party
The IFP’s concerns over the SABC, voiced through its spokespeople on Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications, seem to be related mostly to the broadcaster’s coverage of the party and the independence of the SABC from government and the ANC. The IFP has attributed the crisis at the SABC to a lack of appropriate financial, technical and human resources, and supported the removal of the 2007 Board on the basis that it no longer commanded the confidence of the entire Portfolio Committee. It has decried political interference in the affairs of the SABC by the ANC, which it felt has been a contributing factor in the crisis. For this reason it has advocated for a truly independent board consisting of media professionals and academics without party political affiliations.
Congress of the People
Cope has been very active in commenting on the crisis at the SABC since its launch in 2008, and its comments have been largely critical. Press statements have focussed primarily on the extent of the SABC’s independence from the ANC-led government. Initially the party had opposed the removal of the SABC Board, and argued that management should be held to account for the crisis as well, but it gave qualified support for the move later on in the process. COPE has criticised the Public Service Broadcasting Bill submitted for public discussion in late 2009 as an attempt by the ANC to turn the SABC into its propaganda machine, with the new funding model seeking to “…[create] irrevocable dependence on state (ANC) patronage”. The party rejected the trend towards increased taxes on the public, and called for the broadcaster to be funded from advertising, with contributions from the national budget.
2. Civil society
In civil society, there has been an outpouring of sentiment about the state of the SABC, most of it negative. A sample of views of civil society stakeholders is summarised below:
Save the SABC Coalition (SOS)
The Coalition was formed in June 2008 as a grouping of civil society organisations to respond to the immediate crises facing the SABC, and to encourage civil society to recommit itself to the values of public broadcasting. The Coalition represents a number of trade unions including the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Communications Workers Union (CWU), the Creative Workers Union of South Africa (CWUSA), the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA); independent producer organisations including the South African Screen Federation (SASFED); and a host of non-governmental and community-based organisations including the Freedom of Expression Institute, Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), the South African Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) and the National Community Radio Forum (NCRF); as well as a number of academic and independent experts.
SOS believes that the SABC is not fulfilling its mandate as a public broadcaster, but admitted that the evidence for this assertion was anecdotal, given that the SABC has not been systematically monitored, as it should have been. The SABC does not meet SOS’s expectations of what a public broadcaster should be, which includes setting the standard for broadcasting in the country, championing local content, furthering the goals of a participatory developmental state, ensuring institutional autonomy as well as editorial and programming independence, diversity of voices, public accountability, and a commitment to universal service.
According to SOS, the most recent crisis at the SABC was precipitated by a complete breakdown of corporate governance, with management and the board contributing to the problem in different ways. In the immediate past under GCEO Dali Mpofu’s watch, expenses had increased significantly, especially consultant and staff costs. The oversight structures had also contributed to the crisis by failing to play their roles effectively; these structures, in the view of the Coalition, include ICASA, the Portfolio Committee on Communications and the Department of Communications.
In order for the crisis to be addressed SOS has argued for the development and implementation of sound financial systems, proper investigations into allegations of corruption, employment of a new GCEO, CFO and Chief Operations Officer (COO), and the organisation of a financial rescue package. It also believes that the crisis cannot be resolved by rushing through legislation, and that the stabilisation of the SABC could be achieved adequately under the existing legislation. Rather, a proper review of the 1998 White Paper on broadcasting in light of all developments over the past decade should take place before developing any new laws. This process would include as a first step a “Green Paper” being published to canvas public opinion. On the basis of such wide and thorough consultation a “White Paper” would then formulate policy, and this, in turn, would inform the bill.
Media Monitoring Africa (MMA)
MMA monitors SABC content – and has been doing so since 1993 - and is therefore in a unique position to make judgements about the extent of the broadcaster’s delivery on its mandate.
According to MMA, the SABC is not fulfilling its objectives sufficiently, and although it is providing a range of services, and more local content than other broadcasters, it “has a long way to go in this regard”. Self-censorship is an ongoing problem, according to the MMA, which it attributed to “…a fear of being bold”. MMA has recognised some innovative programmes such as “Kids News”, but expressed concern about the programme being under-resourced, leading to an over-reliance on adult content.
The MMA rates the SABC’s performance best in the provision of basic services, such as radio in African languages, as well as local content on SABC 1. The organisation also recognised the SABC’s fair and comprehensive coverage of the April 2009 elections. Overall, it says, the SABC’s news coverage is “a million times better” than it was under apartheid. However, the SABC’s quality of information left much to be desired, and the broadcaster could do more to link South Africa to the continent.
The MMA has attributed the crisis at the SABC to a “perfect storm” of political upheavals, mismanagement, absence of effective systems and structures, corruption, loss of credibility in the eyes of the public, a failure of oversight structures, and “…a great dollop of greed of the most disgusting order by some of the employees who cared not a jot that they were screwing the public to be rich”.
COSATU
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has been highly critical of political and economic influences on the broadcaster. For over a decade, the congress has argued that the broadcaster does not have commercial independence from advertisers.
In 1998, in response to the Department of Communication’s proposal to corporatise the SABC, COSATU argued that the SABC was incapable of achieving financial self-sufficiency. Corporatisation would therefore lead to “cherry picking”, with the broadcaster focussing on profitable programming, which would decrease access of marginalised audiences. In 2002, in response to the Broadcasting Amendment Bill, the trade union argued that its earlier concerns had been vindicated as the broadcaster exhibited what it called “rampant commercialisation”, which compromised its ability to achieve its mandate. COSATU noted the poor coverage of labour issues, the pro-business nature of the commentary on economic issues, the inadequate development of local content programming and the failure to reflect South Africa’s cultural and linguistic diversity.
In the build-up to the ANC’s 2007 conference, COSATU criticised what it perceived to be the broadcaster’s bias towards the Mbeki administration. In a veiled reference to the perceived political sympathies of then-Managing Director of News and Current Affairs, Snuki Zikalala, the body said in its end of the year statement for 2006: “We shall continue to defend the role of SABC as a public broadcaster, not as a player in the political wars that are happening in the Alliance and in society as some of its senior executives want it to be”. Since then, it has been tracking events at the SABC very closely, commenting on a range of editorial matters that it considered to be examples of bias: statements which culminated in its call for the board to be removed on the basis that it was unrepresentative and politically biased.
Independent producers
The independent production industry has become extremely vocal about the crisis at the SABC, as it has been heavily affected by it. In November 2009 independent producers estimated that the broadcaster owed the sector R60 million in payments for commissioned material, resulting in a number of companies having to lay off staff or even facing bankruptcy. They also accused the broadcaster of cutting back on local content quotas. In a letter to the Arts and Culture Minister Lulu Xingwana, the South African Screen Federation expressed deep concern about what it termed an industry depression, and attributed this to the financial and management crisis at the SABC. The organisation has also voiced its unhappiness with the fact that ICASA has not monitored the SABC’s licence conditions adequately, and has not done so for the past seven years. The federation has called for an evaluation of local content compliance and of the regulations, with a view to the regulator increasing these requirements. Another sore point for the industry is what it perceives to be unfair intellectual property arrangements, whereby the SABC claims all property rights, preventing producers from being able to exploit content to compensate for what they regard as low rates of payment from the broadcaster.
Another very vocal stakeholder in the recent debate is the Television Industry Emergency Coalition, a grouping of independent production companies, including the South African Screen Federation (SASFED), the Independent Producers Organisation (IPO), the Producers Alliance, the Documentary Filmmakers Association (DFA), the Writers Guild of South Africa (WGSA) and the Communication Workers Union (CWU). The Coalition was formed to address the impact of the SABC’s financial crisis on the independent production sector. It has argued for, amongst other things, the following:
• A structural overhaul of the SABC, with a broad review of policy and management, and an end to the appointment of “political Boards”, which, the group claims, has eroded the core functioning of the broadcaster and distorted the management of it;
• The appointment of skilled executive management;
• A review of the terms of trade with the independent production sector, which it regards as biased in favour of the broadcaster (especially its intellectual property arrangements);
• An end to excessive bureaucracy.
On the whole, members of the emergency coalition feel that the SABC is not fulfilling its role as a public broadcaster effectively, and they attribute the problem to bad management and almost non-existent oversight. Head of Communications of SASFED, Marc Schwinges, has argued that the way the broadcaster interacts with the sector is not in the public’s interest, and that producers should have had shared rights long ago, which would have led to higher quality local content. Local content requirements, he says, have not been independently verified and wasteful expenditure and personal enrichment have plagued the broadcaster. The sector also objects to what it refers to as “meddling in independent content streams and internally produced content for political objective … which is hardly appropriate for a public broadcaster”.
SASFED has argued that the SABC has not built collaborative relationships with relevant role players and that it has not been philosophically committed to a progressive notion of public broadcasting. The broadcaster has also been described as unable to conceive of audiences outside of market prescripts.
A further concern is that the SABC may be setting a poor example for other broadcasters in Africa. This is particularly worrying as South Africa is still widely looked to as the model for public broadcasting on the continent.
SASFED has proposed that the SABC board and management should be committed to the following criteria:
• appreciation of the dynamic, full spectrum role of public television in society and an overriding commitment to public service and the public interest;
• impeccable governance competencies;
• commitment to a co-determining and collaborative role by relevant role players and interests;
• commitment and accountability to a renewed, optimally shared vision of public broadcasting services;
• resolute independence from untoward state, party-political and civil constituency interests;
• a dynamic appreciation of the concepts of public service obligations and development;
• a bold commitment to free and diverse expression;
• unquestioned commitment to local content and independent commissioning regulations;
• commitment to conducive terms of trade with the independent production sector, including money for value and just property rights recognition;
• commitment to a bold, dynamic and visionary commissioning structure;
• ability to effect a credible, competent and responsive management and operational structure.
3. Employees of the SABC
Employee organisations active at the SABC have also made their voices heard in the debate on the state of the broadcaster. The only exception has been the Media Worker’s Association of South Africa, whose public pronouncements have been patchy and confined mainly to wage-related rather than policy issues.
Communication Workers Union (CWU)
The CWU has 1024 registered members at the SABC, and is a COSATU affiliate. According to the union, the SABC has refused to accept its proposal for a recognition agreement.
The CWU Shop Steward’s Council feels that “the SABC has become His Master’s Voice for the SACP General Secretary and certain factions of government”. Producers, it says, are instructed to show people who are “aspirational”, and not to address grassroots stories that may show up poor service delivery. The SABC, therefore, is not fulfilling its mandate, “rather it is frustrating the poor by not telling their story”. While it is performing well in producing programmes based on internationally franchised formats, such as “Strictly Come Dancing” and “South Africa’s Got Talent”, it is doing badly on developing innovative local programming. The union has also accused the content hub – the central commissioning unit - of “becoming a haven for deployees [of the ruling party], and people who enrich themselves”, and that it should be disbanded, which will allow each channel to have their own commissioning editors. Furthermore, the union criticised the SABC’s tendency to buy state-of-the-art equipment prematurely, before the technology has stabilised, leading to investments in inappropriate technology. Other problem areas include the loss of assets, sheltered employment of “dead wood” and the existence of corruption.
Broadcasting and Electronic Media Allied Workers Union (BEMAWU)
The union claims to represent over 1000 members in the media sector, particularly in the SABC. While BEMAWU has mostly been active on conditions of employment at the broadcaster, it has also made pronouncements on policy issues. For instance, the union has been extremely critical of the Public Services Broadcasting Bill, stating that between 1200 and 1500 employees will lose their jobs if the Bill is signed into law. This, it says, is because shortfalls in the collection of income tax will have a knock-on effect on the broadcaster, which would be exacerbated if advertising revenue is capped. The union has called for a reconsideration of the Bill’s funding model, and the retention of the television licence collection system with a public funding top-up. The union has also criticised the top-heavy nature of SABC’s management, and has called for cost cutting of wasteful expenditure at this level.
4. Conclusions and recommendations
The findings of this chapter jar noticeably with those of the HSRC research referred to in chapter six, which ranked the SABC the second most trusted institution between 2003 and March 2008. This strongly suggests that the SABC’s credibility has plummeted from 2007 onwards.
The recent crisis at the SABC has shown that South Africans are passionate about their public broadcaster and there are high levels of civil society mobilisation around the broadcaster. What unites views across the political spectrum, and state and civil society, is the deep unhappiness with the SABC. In fact, it is difficult to find positive views about the broadcaster in the recent public debate. The most positive views were expressed by those organisations that are taking a long range view of the SABC’s transformation to a public broadcaster, giving credit for the fact that the broadcaster had undergone substantial changes in the right direction. Most of the views expressed, however, point to a widely held public sentiment that the broadcaster has undergone a relapse of late.
There are widely differing views on the causes of this malaise, as well as solutions offered. Many attribute the problems to poor governance, or more specifically bad management. A few organisations such as COSATU, the ANC and MMA have attempted deeper analyses of the reasons why the SABC is not fulfilling its mandate, with the first two concluding that the broadcaster lacks independence from commercial sources of funding.
The ANC has pursued long range resolutions to change the broadcaster’s funding base: resolutions that have crystallised into the Public Services Broadcasting Bill. Yet a significant blind spot in the ANC’s analysis is its failure to propose measures to enhance the SABC’s political independence.
Political commentator Adam Habib has argued that it is not coincidental that several parastatals are being wracked by crisis at the same time, including the SABC, Eskom and South African Airways. He argued that the crisis had its roots in the Mbeki administration, which deployed ANC members to parastatal boards, blurring the boundaries between government, supervisory boards and executive management. These deployees, he said, also infused a corporate ethic into the parastatals, where profitability rather than sustainability was the operative word, and development outcomes were almost totally ignored. In his view the collapse of governance at the SABC demonstrates the incompatibility of the corporate model with the mandate of a public service broadcaster.
Recommendations
• The negative sentiment against the SABC is so prevalent that the broadcaster’s problems cannot be addressed without substantial public involvement. Imposed solutions will simply not work. The Department needs to subject the proposed Public Services Broadcasting Bill to a proper Green Paper/ White Paper process, so that a thorough analysis can be undertaken of the causes of the SABC’s crisis, and evidence-based policy solutions be developed.
• Mechanisms of public participation in the SABC’s governance and programming are essential. Regular stakeholder forums need to take place with the board, which should be required to meet with stakeholders if a substantial number of signatures are submitted in support of this request. The board should also be required to hold report-back meetings.
• The ANC is the only political party with a relatively clear media policy, and the policy has been made available for public scrutiny. The party is pursuing these policy positions in its work in Parliament and government, which gives its approach to the SABC a measure of consistency and predictability. The same cannot be said for other political parties. This makes it difficult to discern what they actually stand for in relation to public broadcasting. All political parties should be enjoined to develop media policies that include sections on public broadcasting so that the electorate can engage with their policy pronouncements on the broadcaster, and hold them to account for their performance in government and parliament.
• As a matter of urgency, the SABC needs to review its intellectual property arrangement with independent producers, to allow them to exploit the content they have produced. Independent production companies can not be expected to continue without income while the SABC sorts out its funding crisis and a collapse of the industry would have disastrous consequences for public broadcasting in the future.
|
Communication Strategy 
