Mail & Guardian reporters
The beginning of November was D-day for radio stations: one in five songs or 20% of their music must now be a home-brew.
Although a number of radio stations are below that quota, only one has applied to the Independent Broadcasting Authority for a broadcasting exemption.
Highveld Stereo’s station manager Malcolm Fried confirmed their request. “Radio competition is far higher in the Greater Johannesburg area so we have to niche more carefully.” The authority has not made a decision on Highveld Stereo’s application, though industry insiders feel such an exemption could set a dangerous precedent if granted.
The station’s new owners also committed themselves to meeting local content quotas in their licence application.
Fried says that Highveld has made great strides since the station was bought from the SABC last year. It has doubled its local music to 14% of the playlist and it sponsors a fortnightly unplugged concert featuring a local artist.
For the SABC’s 11 individual language stations, it was a clear romp home in the local content audit as much of their programming is local. 5FM has the most to boast.
In 1995, only 3,05% of 5FM’s music was local, but by October this year, the authority’s monitoring and complaints department reported that the station’s local content had jumped to 24.19%. East Coast Radio and Radio Oranje – also bought from the SABC – are both meeting the target.
“This has occurred in tandem with a massive growth in rock music in South Africa. One can debate, like the chicken and the egg, which came first, but radio policy has clearly played a critical role in developing music industries,” said Carol Steinberg of the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology.
Broadcasting regulation for television states that the SABC must broadcast 50% local content in five years time, with an average of 30% across all three channels for now. M-Net must have 6% in encoded time with 20% in open time.
The applicants for the coveted private television licence have all committed themselves to meeting, or even exceeding the quota. Free-To-Air TV, for example, has promised 58,13% after two years.
Local content on SABC-TV has declined in the 1990s, dipping from 32,6% in 1992 to 26,3% in 1997.
The levels of local content on SABC1 and SABC3 dropped sharply after the restructuring introduced by the money- saving McKinsey Report. M-Net is also below quotas at 5% of encoded viewing and 17,8% in open time, said Steinberg.