The SABC will have to rewrite its television licence application with the IBA’s assistance, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy
The SABC’s application for an amendment to its television licences — hastily submitted during a stand-off with the Independent Broadcast Authority — is fraught with errors and will be declared null and void.
The corporation will then attempt, for a second time, to lodge an accurate, all- combined application with the IBA.
The incorrect application which appeared in a special Government Gazette two weeks ago had, among other errors, its proposed language amendments wrong and the names of two of the channels did not correspond with the SABC’s existing licence conditions.
Answering queries from the Mail & Guardian, the IBA said this week that the SABC had also requested the wrong amendment for two of its services, and one of the languages that had been catered for, had been left out.
”These errors in the application can only be attributed to the fact that it was put together in haste. Due to time pressures, there seems not to have been time to check the application thoroughly once it was prepared,” the IBA statement said.
The parties are involved in ongoing talks to try and resolve this and ”find the best way to proceed,” the IBA said, adding that the delay in formulating a second application would not affect the launch of the new-look SABC on February 4.
The SABC currently lacks the IBA’s approval to amend its television broadcast licences in such a way as to allow the corporation to spread the 11 South African languages equitably across all three new channels as it had initially planned. According to the IBA, however, it can still forge ahead with a semi- relaunch within the parameters of its existing
Legal counsel for the SABC denied that the application was ”incorrect”, adding that talks between the parties were being held in a bid to draft an all-inclusive application which would carry relevant technical details regarding transmissions in the nine provinces as laid out in the corporation’s footprint.
The counsel said nothing had been finalised with regard to the new licence application, adding that submissions made by groups in response to the first application would not be disregarded but carried forward for the the IBA to study.
The IBA stressed that the publication of an application in the Government Gazette was not an automatic procedure and that it had to be considered by IBA councillors before a decision could be taken to publicise it.
The IBA also said the SABC had requested that it exercise discretion not to hold a public hearing concerning its amendment, but the corporation had ”relied on an old legal provision which had been amended during 1995 and was no longer applicable”. The IBA is, therefore, by law, obliged to hold public hearings and it intends to do so, a senior IBA source said.
A meeting between the SABC and the IBA on Friday was intended to further discuss the handing in of an improved application by the
The new application, which the SABC’s legal team must formulate with the assistance of the IBA, will need to be gazetted, publicly scrutinised and, if necessary, hearings will have to be held in accordance with the Broadcasting Act. This is a necessary procedure for the SABC not to be in contravention of its licence before the full- blown relaunch of programmes and re-shuffling of languages goes ahead.
The IBA said that before it gazetted the SABC’s initial application, but only after it had been sent to the government printer, did the SABC’s attorney inform the regulatory body of certain errors in the application, adding, however, that the SABC considered them to be minor and immaterial. The IBA said it was too late at that point to correct such errors before the application was published.