Jack Rampou
The SABC is competing with new community radio stations by providing regional language services countrywide. But community stations say they are not threatened and can compete effectively.
SABC radio has created extra services for specific language groups by using transmitter splits in the different regions. For example, since July 3, both Radio Zulu and Radio Xhosa have been running regional programming aimed at Gauteng and Cape Town communities respectively. They have both been allocated time slots between 5.30pm and 7pm to facilitate regional services — news, actuality programmes and sports.
Radio Afrikaans is due to open similar services on October 2, offering services to Port Elizabeth, Kimberly and Cape Town, and Radio Sesotho will be doing the same in Bloemfontein, parts of the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
“It’s a scam. The SABC is playing all these silly games and the IBA should intervene,” says Alan Munro, Smart FM station manager. But he is not fazed by the competition. “I do not feel threatened by SABC power — there is room for all of us. Our only fear as community stations is that we are faced with number-crunchers — if you do not have a big audience, everyone turns their back on you.”
He believes part of the Broadcasting Act needs to be changed to offer new community stations more freedom, such as not having to apply to do outside broadcasts, for example.
“We all have roles to play … The SABC should stop window-dressing and fulfil its obligation as a national broadcaster,” Munro says.
Radio Fishhoek and Tygerberg, two Western Cape Christian stations sharing a frequency, do not feel threatened either. “It is an open market. If they intend to be in competition with us, we will deal with it,” says the Reverend Soon Zevenster for Radio Tygerberg.
News director Morio Fanyana of Radio TNT, a campus station at Technikon of the North, sees no threat from the SABC. “We have our own mission intended for our specific audience, whom we live with.”
Rodger Thebe, station manager at Radio TNT, feels it stands a better chance than stations like Radio Mmabatho. “We have a very intimate relationship with our community. We live with them and there is no way our community can desert us for another, especially the SABC,” he says.
Campus station UCT Radio feels the SABC is seeking a new identity. “I think the SABC is threatened by us because we are more focused,” says technical director Marino Phocas.
They are scared to lose a lot of the potential community broadcaster listenership that is already in our hands,”