/ 5 May 1995

How will they do it

Justin Pearce

How can the provinces turn the idea of provincially-based broadcasting into a reality? While this matter is still up for discussion, the Bophuthatswana Broadcasting Corporation this week presented the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) with a proposal to open up Bop Broadcasting’s facilities as a resource for all the provinces.

This plan would see Bop Broadcasting’s facilities in Mmabatho becoming the hub of a national network specifically geared to serving provincial stations. A core programme will be beamed via satellite from Mmabatho to broadcasting centres in each of the other eight provinces. The provincial centres would then be able to broadcast as much or as little of the core programme as they wished, making up the remainder of the time with material produced in the province.

Bop Broadcasting proposes that the SABC retain only two of the public broadcaster television channels. The third channel would be devoted to the provincial services, and the core programming facility governed by a national board with non-government representatives from each province. Provincial production facilities would be controlled by provincially-based boards.

Peter Godson of Bop Broadcasting said this would give the provinces complete control over the third public broadcaster channel, in contrast with the SABC proposal, which allows only a two-hour “window” per day for provincial broadcasting, at times determined by Auckland

Godson pointed out that the existence of the Mmabatho facilities was a hangover from apartheid planning, and that rather than being privatised for use by a local broadcaster, they should be used for the benefit of the whole country.

Riani de Wet, MEC for public media in the North-West, said all the other provinces had responded positively to the Bop Broadcasting proposal.