An outcry from conservatives and threats to cut advertising forced the SABC ‘s hand. Justin Pearce reports
The SABC has begun to beat a hasty retreat over its new- look SAfm station, as board chair Dr Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri this week tried to paper over the growing rifts in the
Staffers accused the board of pandering to the tastes of the most vocal and conservative sections of the community rather than defending changes that were designed to serve the needs of the majority. Of particular concern were the board’s apparent backtracking on the TV package proposed to the IBA — apparently in response to Afrikaans lobbyists — and moves by senior management to alter SAfm, apparently prompted by complaints from the English-speaking listeners of the old Radio South Africa.
Well-placed SABC sources dismissed Matsepe-Casaburri’s assertion that there were no rifts within the board, saying that white Afrikaans-speaking board members had taken up the cause of Afrikaans business and cultural organisations to defend the present privileged status of Afrikaans on TV.
It appears that the individuals who are bowing to the Afrikaans lobby are those who were unilaterally appointed in 1993 by then President FW de Klerk when he exercised his veto right over the draft list of board members which had emerged out of a process of public consultation.
Radio staff have written to management expressing their anger at changes that have been ordered at SAfm, notably the removal of virtually all the African newsreaders from the channel.
Staff see this as a response to the vicious reaction by the elderly, wealthy and largely white audience of the now- defunct Radio South Africa, who cannot bear hearing English spoken with an obviously black accent. Staff members who spoke to the WM&G admitted that some of the newsreaders may have not been up to a professional standard when they were appointed — but they are incensed that the response to the complaints was not to offer training but simply to dispense with the services of the readers.
There are also fears that the latest batch of newsreaders awaiting auditioning are all white.
Staff members loyal to the new SAfm feel they have been abandoned by radio chief Govin Reddy, who previously stood up to harsh criticism as the most staunch defender of SAfm. But Reddy is not universally liked by the board, with certain members embarrassed by the undiplomatic manner in which he presented SAfm to the public.
The board has spoken in vague terms of being “open to adapt formats and content to meet audience needs” in regard to SAfm. But staff are concerned that “audience needs” is being interpreted as the needs of former Radio South Africa listeners, in the absence of any feedback from SAfm’s much wider target audience.
Employees are also concerned with the autocratic manner in which these changes have been implemented. A first step was the trimming down of PM Live in order to reintroduce the stock market prices — a move made behind the backs of the current affairs staff. While the reintroduction of the stock market prices involves only a few minutes of airtime, it is seen as “the thin end of the wedge” which could lead to more unilaterally imposed changes to please the former Radio South Africa audience.
The controversy over Afrikaans on TV arises over the SABC’s submission to the IBA last week, which relegates Afrikaans to a single channel. This provoked an outcry from the Afrikaans lobby, with business threatening to withhold advertising if the SABC went ahead with the proposal.
The present crisis appears to have arisen as a result of SABC management’s failure to show its proposals to the board before presenting them to the IBA — thus missing a chance to accommodate the fears of the Afrikaans lobby before the proposal was finalised. The board was briefed on the proposal, but heard nothing of the details before they emerged at the IBA hearing.
At worst, this represents a suspicion on the part of management regarding the board’s objectives. At best, the row over the IBA submission is the result of incompetence. It appears that the submission was finished too late for the board members to read it before it was presented to the
The way in which the submission describes the three proposed TV channels also seems designed to provoke an angry reaction: it gives the impression that Afrikaans is to be confined to a channel aimed at a largely rural, uneducated audience, a description which one source said was far from accurate. Afrikaans was put onto Channel 3 because that is the channel which covers the largest part of South Africa, both urban and rural.
The SABC faces a vast public relations job if is to overcome the alienation of powerful community interests. And now that the board is talking of a revised submission to the IBA, it stands accused of buckling under pressure from conservatives.