After three years of controversial transformation at the SABC, we ask what it is getting right. Ferial Haffajee reports
The SABC sealed its transformation this week with the adoption of a new logo.
The logo symbolises a broadcaster in tune with the dictates of the market. The new broadcasting barons now have their eyes on revenue and profit after three years of a transformation which has kept the SABC on the list of local trouble spots demanding regular coverage in most newspapers.
But the SABC recently overturned a massive deficit and is firmly in the black after a no-holds-barred restructuring exercise by the management consultancy, McKinsey.
“It has been made very clear to the SABC [by government] that we have to be self- sufficient and this has had an impact on programming,” says Govin Reddy, deputy to chief executive Zwelakhe Sisulu.
In a nutshell this means that programming on what should be a public broadcaster is largely ratings-driven. Says Reddy: “This is necessary if we are to be fiscally responsible.”
It is terms like “fiscally responsible” and “ratings-driven” that get in the nose-hairs of the SABC’s critics. Many, like the Independent Producers Organisation, decry the lack of local content on television. Others complain that by being profit- oriented the SABC is ignoring all that makes a broadcaster “publicly” owned.
They want more documentaries, news, local productions and educational television, fewer American sitcoms and schlock – though these attract the largest audiences and therefore the most advertising bucks.
“It’s too simplistic to say we’re not a public broadcaster,” says SABC spokesperson Enoch Sithole, adding that “there’s a high level of local content on television and radio”. Sithole counts the SABC’s much improved news coverage among the greatest achievements of the past three years. “We’ve rescued the SABC from being anyone’s mouthpiece,” he says.
So, let’s have a change from saturation coverage of the many things the SABCgot wrong, and let us ask: what are the areas in which the SABC has got it right in the past three years?
As far as programming is concerned, under Barney Mthombothi and Franz Kruger SABC Radio News has become a force to be reckoned with. With about 600 journalists, it is the country’s largest news-gathering operation. This team of energetic young people provide news in 12 languages across 15 radio stations.
Current affairs programmes – which are longer than bulletins with live interviews and are more creative items – have improved across stations with anchors like Tim Modise putting everybody from Pik Botha to Nelson Mandela under the spotlight. And yet SABC radio now has fewer reports from Africa on its news and current affairs shows than ever before, as budgets forced most SABC stringers off the air.
In May next year, SAfm and the BBC join voices in a new jointly produced programme which will be called SA Live.
Television news has been improving since the injection of new journalists just before the 1994 elections and recently Allister Sparks has sharpened the line up. Again, massive budget cuts have forced the SABC to rely overwhelmingly on reports from the BBC and CNN.
As the SABC has quietly dumped several national languages, the news budget can now afford another current affairs show, which Sparks has introduced: Newshour, a new English-only weekly look at news, both national and international.
Many say thank God for Blackadder and Suburban Bliss. Local productions have come into their own in the past few years with programmes like Soul City and Generations maintaining consistently high audience ratings.
There have also been kudos from many quarters for path-breaking documentaries like Jacques Paauw’s Prime Evil, Max du Preez and Sue Valentine’s weekly television and radio slots on the truth commission.
As far as the SABC’s policies are concerned, the civil service can learn a thing or two from the way in which it has slimmed down staff numbers by almost 50% in the past three years.
Sithole says the staff complement is down from 6 000 in 1994 to just over 3 000 today. It has also put black people in most senior positions and is now working on improving the balance further down the line.
The SABC has also signed a watershed agreement with the Performing Arts Workers Equity, a benchmark for improved conditions of service for performing artists. This could pave the way for even better local productions.
And, what’s more, the SABC’s new methods of collecting licence revenue offer more carrot and very little stick.
* In the past week, according to the Television Audience Measurement Surveys of the South African Advertising Research Foundation, South African adults rated the SABC’s television top five shows as follows.
On SABC 1: The Bold and the Beautiful (repeat broadcasts), Missing Link, The Bold and the Beautiful, Soul City, The Bold and the Beautiful.
On SABC 2:Suburban Bliss, Muvhango, television sport: boxing, television sport: soccer, Highlander.
On SABC 3: Rescue 911, and the news in four different languages.