Jacquie Golding-Duffy talks to Jill Chisholm, the woman at the helm of SABC television, about the successes and failures of the new- look channels
The new-look SABC has some distance to travel before its revamped schedules are up to scratch. While television head Jill Chisholm is by-and-large pleased with the relaunch, she concedes that schedule times have to be fine- tuned, signal distribution reviewed and the transmission footprint redefined, if viewers in all nine provinces are to capture the revised SABC.
Chisholm is not only editor-in-chief of television news, but also wears the hat of acting chief executive. She had to fill the latter post a mere five months after being appointed head of news in July last year. As acting chief executive, she is responsible for all three channels on SABC, the sports division and the former Safritel, now called SABC Productions.
Critics have charged her with being “power hungry” and “overly ambitious”, but Chisholm says she is not intent on holding down both positions. She is, by her own admission, spreading herself too thin and is, therefore, unable to dedicate enough time and effort to various projects and people. “But the decision is not in my hands. It rests with Zwelakhe Sisulu,” she says.
When asked if she was happy with the new schedules, Chisholm said it was not her function to be pleased about programmes and laughed. If it were all up to her, there would have been fewer game shows.
Chisholm said news coverage would be improved, and she highlighted a few of the changes planned at the SABC.
SABC news was establishing its first foreign desk where foreign news would be sifted and reported. “I believe South Africans are no longer as introspective as before and viewers are interested to know what’s happening in the rest of the world. We will also be developing more African news. We are part of the continent, after all.”
Chisholm is also critical of the standards of local journalism and says “certain improvements” need to be made.
“I hate news diaries and think we should be probing news rather than just reporting it.”
On viewers’ responses to the new-look SABC, Chisholm said time and patience was needed. She said there were problems with pockets of the country unable to receive Channel 3 because of the SABC’s limited footprint in the Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal, while signal distribution in the Western Cape also needed attention.
“I think we have to allow time for programmes to settle down and for audiences to become accustomed to all the changes,” she says, before admitting that she was, however, “singularly pleased” that indigenous language programmes were attracting the audiences it was aimed at.
“Average ratings have been positive overall and Sesotho programmes have, in particular, captured a wide audience which was prevously not catered for by the SABC.”
Some viewers had complained about changed time schedules. Certain soapies like Santa Barbara had to be shifted from the traditional 4 and 5.30pm slots to mid-afternoon, spurring complaints from an “amazing number of women”, Chisholm said.
“Other than that, I often hear people saying they have to choose between two programmes on different channels and that is a start in the right direction.”
Chisholm said it usually takes about three months for new schedules to settle in and that it was a bit premature to try and gauge the success or shortcomings of the new SABC.
“Although the SABC is planning more changes, we must first get a feel on changes we have already made. We are committed to expanding local production and I think we have to be more daring with local projects if we are to move away from the mainstream.
“The SABC lacks a distinctiveness apparent at other public broadcasters. We need the type of television that is unique to South Africa.”
Since the SABC was officially awarded a third channel by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications two weeks ago, it will be able to continue work on fulfilling its mandate of spreading the 11 languages equitably across these channels.
Chisholm welcomed the decision and will be promoting Channel 3 more than before. Some advertisers believe it could become the flagship of the SABC. As a predominantly English language channel, its bid would be to attract more black audiences. But Chisholm said she did not want to duplicate the former TV1 flagship situation.
“The portfolio committee stipulated that it favoured seeing competition with other broadcasters sooner rather than later. The competition from terrestrial channels will be welcomed, as it will force competitors in the arena to improve and maintain the quality of television programming,” Chisholm said.
The committee said two more channels specifically for independent broadcasters would be introduced by mid-next year, but this did not faze Chisholm.
She believes that the advertising pie will be sufficient to fulfill the needs of all channels. “Various channels attract advertising by the quality of their audiences and the type of audience you gather depends on the quality of your programmes. All this puts you on your mettle and will lead to healthy competition for advertising revenue,” she said.
While other public broadcasters are funded from the fiscal budget, the SABC is a unique hybrid where funding is generated by television licences and self-generated revenue. Chisholm feels government could assist in collecting licence fees by, perhaps, incorporating it into municipal service bills.
Chisholm stresses that it is extremely difficult to try and provide all services to all people in 11 languages on generated revenue, because to even make and promote local production was expensive.
Chisholm has made her presence felt and proven her mettle within the corporation by steadfastly making changes to news and current affairs programmes and internally revamping and publicly relaunching the SABC.
But her critics are patiently waiting in the wings to see whether she’ll successfully pull off her mandate and establish the SABC as not only a representative, but also a quality programme broadcaster.
In her first firm address to staffers seven months ago, Chisholm was quoted as saying that mistakes, although understandable, were only allowed to happen once. Whether the SABC’s single major mistake — a footprint which fails to deliver in the appropriate languages to certain groupings — will be rectified remains to be seen.
Although recommendations have been forwarded to the Independent Broadcasting Authority, critics and viewers wait with bated breath.