Neil Bierbaum
BY applying public service attitudes to its commercial radio stations, the South African Broadcasting Corporation could cause the demise of these stations. This is the opinion of former 5FM programme manager, Keith Lindsay.
Lindsay is sueing the SABC for wrongful dismissal after his contract was terminated two months before it was due to expire. Lindsay, who had been with the station for 12 years as a disk jockey and a programme developer, insists that the court case is a matter of principle.
However, talking to him it becomes clear that it is the outcome of a longstanding disagreement between himself and more senior management at the SABC over the future of the station.
Lindsay spent 15 months in charge of programming at 5FM, during which time he attempted to focus its target audience more narrowly on the 18-24 age bracket. He claims this is necessary for the station to survive in an increasingly competitive radio market, which features a narrow targeting of audiences along the lines of demographics or interest groups.
However, the more senior SABC management felt that the station should rather appeal to as wide an audience as possible.
Lindsay acknowledges that their decision was driven by a public service approach. “The SABC should stick to its public broadcast service function. They are budgeting for a PBS and yet they still want commercial returns,” he says. “If they continue this way, the stations will lose their edge year by year as the independents settle in and take niches off 5FM and Metro’s base.”
However, general manager of Commercial Radio Services Koos Radebe says that budgets have not yet been finalised. Radio Active marketing director Coen Gous does not believe that the programming changes effected by Lindsay have been entirely successful. Preliminary research figures show that audiences in some time channels are down, he says.
Lindsay predicts that the effect of independent stations will start to be felt within the next 18 to 24 months. Most of the 5FM DJs’ contracts expire at the end of this year and it remains to be seen whether they will make themselves available for new commercial stations or whether they will renew their contracts until the end of September next year — the end of the SABC financial year. There is also the possibility that the SABC will not want to renew their contracts.
Another problem hampering the station concerns the phasing in of new staff. Lindsay believes that any new DJ, whether black or white, should be phased in. This he did successfully with Tich Matazz and Ursula Stapelfeldt.
However, senior SABC management wants to see more black DJs more quickly, another decision which Lindsay believes is driven by a public service mind-set and out of touch with commercial realities.
Gous feels that the need for funding will create an imperative for a more commercial approach, but acknowledges that it is difficult for staff to escape the public broadcaster mind-set completely.
Lindsay is currently working on programme syndication, making radio shows and selling them to independent commercial stations. The way he sees it, this would effectively create a national station more powerful than one that has a national licence, during the times that the syndicated programming is on air. These could be sports programmes featuring interviews with the sports stars, or news programmes, or features on bands.
The station could use the programming as is, or it could personalise the programme with its own DJs. This could also help stations to deal with the high local content quotas, says Lindsay.
A new subsidiary of Primedia Broadcasting, Broadcast Resources, also intends making radio programmes available to community and commercial radio stations across the country.
However, instead of selling the programming to stations, the subsidiary will make the programming available for free via satellite, but it will package it with advertising. The station will have to play the whole package.
This shifts the risk — and the potential reward — to the network. The only cost to the station will be that of a satellite dish and a decoder. The programming will cover a range of formats including news, sport, talk and music.