Up for investigation is M-Net’s legal right to two channels, writes Jacquie Golding-Duffy
The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) will conduct an investigation into M-Net’s possession of two channels later this year.
Together with SABC’s three channels, M-Net channels have limited the ability of the IBA to open up the airwaves. The pay channel’s open time and advertising will also be investigated.
Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting Pallo Jordan said he had inquired about M-Net’s two channels on several occasions and was told M-Net had the rights to two channels based on a “letter written by some minister in the former government”.
“It’s all up to the IBA. If M-Net has legally acquired the channel to broadcast, then so be it. But if it acquired the channel by some other means, then the matter has to be investigated and it will come up for review.”
Too many channels are on the frequency bands (UHF and VHF), leaving the IBA little room in which to manoeuver the introduction of more independent channels and to issue licences to competing television broadcasters.
For now, the IBA intends licensing one new private national television channel by mid-1997, but the technicalities and financial viability of this move are problems which the regulatory body has to solve.
Most countries, by-and-large, do not allow pay channels to use terrestrial frequencies (as opposed to satellite), because they are scarce. Television around the world uses terrestrial frequencies which are either UHF and/or VHF, but as frequencies are limited, most countries ensure that the channels operating on these frequencies, whether commercial or public, are accessible to everyone, free of charge.
M-Net, however, charges a fee to its subscribers, even though it currently broadcasts only on a terrestrial frequency. Its adaptation of “pay television” on terrestrial channels is unusual.
The IBA Act approved by the Transitional Executive Council in 1993 contained a “grandfather” clause which protected the M-Net licence “under existing conditions” for eight years, from the date that the IBA was established in March 1994. M-Net claims this entitles it to the two channels it uses.
In contrast, the SABC was “grandfathered” for one year from March 1994. The Act also specified that an inquiry be held into the SABC.
M-Net was put on to the back-burner while the IBA urgently formulated recommendations to reflect the new role of the SABC.
According to the chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications, Saci Macozoma, an amendment to the IBA Act enables the regulatory body to inquire into “grandfather” clauses.
“This does not mean that the IBA can change the clauses at will, but it does enable them to conduct an inquiry. If the IBA can find that ‘grandfathered’ licences makes it difficult to regulate broadcasting then they may have a case. There has been a lot of speculation regarding M- Net’s two channels, but that the IBA has to investigate,” Macozoma said.
M-Net’s main channel flights movies, sport and children’s programmes to owners of decoders, while its second channel, a community channel, shows East Net, Shalom, Christian Network, Kanaal Portuguese and Rhema Network.
M-Net chief executive officer Gerrie de Villiers said M-Net had taken “expert legal opinion” and there was no problem with it having two channels.
“The IBA raised this issue with us two years ago. We presented our position and nothing happened,” he said. In response to the limited number of frequencies available for broadcasting, De Villiers said it was not M-Net that was hogging the frequencies. The question had to be asked why the SABC had three channels, despite recommendations by the IBA that it be cut back to two.
The IBA said its recommendation that the SABC be restricted to two channels was based on financial viability and concerns about how the public broadcaster could sustain three channels.
However, the regulatory body said the SABC needed three channels if it was to successfully implement its mandate of broadcasting 11 languages equitably.
De Villiers said M-Net’s existing licence did not limit the number of channels it could have.
“Even though we can have an unlimited number of channels it is not our intention and we told this to the IBA. We would like to expand our transmission network but have been told very clearly [by the IBA] that we will not be allowed to expand, despite pressure to do so from people in Welkom and East London.”
M-Net’s two-hour open time arrangement — which allows it to broadcast unencoded for two hours a day — also falls within the terms of the licence issued by the former government before the IBA came into office.
There have been claims that M-Net
rakes in millions of rands annually through advertising during its open time.
Sources within the SABC have complained that M-Net is allowed this open time to compete directly with the public broadcaster, but is not obliged to increase its local content. They say the pay channel was getting off “scot free”.
The IBA said that its triple inquiry recommended that both the commercial and the private channels should broadcast local content and M-Net, in particular, had to broadcast 30% local content during its open time.