Ferial Haffajee
The Green Paper on broadcasting will start a shake-up of the industry which will change it fundamentally. We summarise the comments from lobbyists who have suggested everything from the scrapping of an SABC Channel and television licences to the total rejection of the Green Paper.
Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI): The FXI says that a Media Development Agency should be started to fund independent media. The government should contribute to this agency from savings generated by the potential privatisation of an SABC channel and the merger of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) and the South African Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.
It wants the Broadcasting Act of 1974 repealed and the SABC governed by a new law that enshrines its independence. The FXI also recommends that anti-cross-media ownership laws be retained and enforced. The lobby group wants the SABC to be 100% funded by government and says television licences should also be scrapped.
Rhodes University: Rhodes University’s journalism department has warned government “not to throw the baby out with the bath water” by hurriedly changing policy affecting the IBA and the SABC. Fundamental changes are in the legislative pipeline this year.
Its submission has also recommended that the government rethink restrictions on cross- media ownership. The SABC should have one television channel and radio stations that carry no advertising.
Rhodes has rejected the government’s suggestion of a centralised school of broadcasting, as has the FXI. It says an audit of all existing training is under way, as are plans to integrate all existing training into the government’s National Qualifications Forum: “A centralised school of broadcasting runs against the trend to deregulation and regional broadcasting in much of the world.”
The Independent Producers’ Organisation (IPO) and seven related organisations: This comprehensive submission suggests the SABC lose one channel and that it focus its two remaining channels so that one can cross- subsidise the other. Channel 1 should be ratings-driven, while the second channel should be an “information and cultural” channel. It further recommends that by early in the next century, all pay television should move off terrestrial frequencies to satellite.
The government’s Green Paper recommends that the third SABC channel could be privatised, but the IPO has recommended it be transformed into an educational service run on a not-for-profit basis. It could be financed by a mix of government funding, regional advertising, private sponsorship and the proceeds of a national lottery. This submission accuses the SABC of failing to meet “people’s needs” and it goes into great detail on how an educational channel could do this by focusing on education, development, languages, cultures, marginalised and special interest groups.
Media Monitoring Project: This monitoring organisation has rejected the Green Paper on broadcasting. Its submission says the discussion document proposes too much governmental intervention in policy and broadcast licensing. The government has mooted that the minister should be able to suspend the licensing of community radio during regular reviews of the sector.
Because “listening to the radio and watching television are two of the most significant cultural activities we engage in”, the project says the discussion document is too limiting. It focuses only on broadcasting as a cash-cow for government and as an element of nation-building.
The Media Monitoring Project criticises the government for bypassing the recommendations of the IBA’s expensive triple inquiry report into broadcasting. “This pretends that the IBA’s report was never written and is blatant in its disregard for what was a markedly more democratic, more systematic and transparent process than is currently being used by the communications ministry.”
Open Society Foundation: The foundation has rejected suggestions that Parliament be asked to give the minister the power to suspend the granting of community radio licences pending a review of the sector.
Some quarters of government are known to be unhappy about licence allocation: they want more rural radio. The Green Paper suggests: “Parliament might wish to consider giving the minister the power to direct the IBA to suspend further licence allocations …” The foundation also criticises government’s “negative view” of the community radio sector. It says much good has come from the licensing of about 80 stations including job creation and airwave diversity. But it agrees that some amendments to policy in the sector are necessary.