Ferial Haffajee
THE three months beginning July will bring massive changes for the South African viewing public. The SABC is going commercial and many existing programmes will go off air in the next three months, changing the programming line-up significantly.
Those getting the chop are programmes that do not make money; a worrying trend for a public broadcaster where profits alone should not dictate programming content.
This is Auckland Park, post-McKinsey. The management consultancy that has recommended changes to slim down the broadcaster and help it clamber out of the red. The SABC’s latest annual report revealed a funds shortage of R64-million. Television’s heir apparent, Molefe Mokgatle, who takes over from Jill Chisholm next month, is unapologetic about the change. “Finance is going to drive this organisation for the next two to three years. There will be no programme on air that’s not profitable,” he said this week.
One of the biggest chops will be GMSA, the breakfast programme losing millions. It’s going off air in July, and as with many other programmes, there are no firm plans yet on what will replace it. Management’s currently combing through alternative programme ideas presented by GMSA staff; but all that’s certain for now is that morning news bulletins will only be covered in one or two languages as of the end of July.
Profitable programmes are those which advertisers like and where they will buy space.
That’s why viewers can expect a plethora of sitcoms, dramas and game shows like Zama- Zama, all of which are money-spinners. SABC3 has just bought a range that features the best on offer across the United States networks. Among those that will cater to a mass market are: Jerry McGuire, Michael Hayes, Nothing Sacred, Everybody Loves Raymond and spin-off series from three movies, Police Academy, Born Free and Honey I Shrunk the Kids.
This is the trend across the channels. But it’s a move that industry-watchers call “ratings-driven-TV”. The good news for those on the other side of the box is that audience preferences will gain currency.
It will be done in two ways: by measuring audience ratings and audience appreciation, which is done by direct research. Programmes will be moved off air more rapidly if they are not popular with viewers.
The flip side is that putting the SABC on such a firm commercial footing could see its public mandate fly out of the window. Public broadcasting is the catch-all phrase covering challenging local and international documentaries, educational television, quality local films and news and current affairs.
It is this programming that will tell the SABC apart from its competitors like M-Net and the commercial free-to-air station which will be licensed by the end of next year.
But now its public broadcast mandate has already been judged too expensive and local productions could go in the cost-savings drive. “Local content is under threat. On certain days M-Net has more local content than the SABC,” says Mfundi Vundla of the Independent Producers Organisation. He’s quite right. The IBA has quietly dropped its local content quota for the SABC.
Instead of 50%, the authority will now settle for less than 30% local content across the three channels and will only begin getting tough about the gazetted requirement of half local content in five years’ time. “Government just does not have the money to meet the public broadcasting mandate. We will not expect much local content for the next two years. It’s important for the SABC to be viable,” says a senior IBA staffer.
“If we will be scheduling commercially, we won’t have a lot of documentaries such as in the NNTV days,” says Louis Raubenheimer, the head of SABC3. The channel that has brought fine viewing like The Death of Yugoslavia, Jacques Pauw’s Prime Evil and others into South African sitting rooms will now feature only two documentaries in the next few months.
Television executives are also going to be super-choosy about the local documentaries it buys because they are expensive. SABC- TV’s schedules for the next three months show that current affairs and documentaries have all been taken out of prime-time viewing.
Mokgatle says there is place on the new- look SABC-TV for local productions as well as quality documentaries like Prime Evil and the TRC Special Report, both of which achieved high ARs, showing there is a substantial market out there for more challenging viewing than the ilk of the Bold and the Beautiful.
Says Mokgatle: “Some local programmes give us the competitive edge against coming competition.” He’d like local programmes, be they dramas like Molo Fish or documentaries, to be 80% co-production driven. These are programmes made with international partners.