/ 31 July 1998

e-tv shakes the duopoly

Brenda Atkinson

If you’ve been waiting to exhale ever since the grade-school camerawork of Avenues swung its way across SABC 3; if you’re still wondering why paying your TV licence seems the wrong thing to do; if you’re considering ditching your M-Net subscription, don’t panic yet.

e-tv, the hot and politically sound channel that snatched South Africa’s new private television licence from six rivals in March this year, will finally announce its programme line-up to invited guests at a secret venue next Friday, August 7.

Secrecy seems to have been an occupational necessity for the free-to-air channel that promises to “change the viewing patterns of audiences in South Africa”.

Midi-TV’s bid for the e-tv licence earlier this year was not unanimously approved by IBA councillors, and its success-by- majority-vote was marked by a largely miffed and at times hostile reception from competitors.

Threats of appeals and even lawsuits seemed not to deter MD Jonathan Proctor, who, as former head of Bop-TV, brings considerable expertise and pragmatic panache to his e-tv position. Proctor’s public management of legal and other threats since e-tv received the IBA nod – threats that, despite being withdrawn, have cost the station a two- month delay and R7-million – has been consistent and cool.

And the temperature is undeniably hot. As Proctor puts it, “local broadcasting is controlled by the SABC-M-Net duopoly”, and the new kid on the block has had to keep its nose clean. In the face of pressure from the SABC and M-Net to release its programming schedules, e-tv has played a close and careful hand, choosing only selected media, advertising, and associated interest groups for private screenings and news releases as and when appropriate.

“The market is already heavily flooded by existing media owners,” says Proctor, “and unlike most of them, we don’t have an uncle to back us up. We’re new, we’re independent, and as such don’t have the resilience of the established players.”

It seems likely that the resilience Proctor speaks of won’t be long in coming. The station has impeccable black empowerment credentials, both internally and externally: other than Proctor, the management team reads like a rainbow representation wish-list, and Proctor’s deputy managing director is Richard Magau of Bop-TV fame. Local shareholders include powerful black empowerment concerns: Hosken Consolidated Investments, owned by the investment arms of the South African Clothing and Textile Workers Union and the National Union of Mineworkers, and Nafcoc Holding.

Add to this the fact that e-tv’s human resources policy has been structured by labour relations guru Professor Clive Thompson, that the spirit of the constitution and the Bill of Rights shapes all policy from employment to commissioning, that even the base-city of the operation will be chosen in terms of its urban empowerment potential, and you have one astoundingly competitive station.

It’s clear that Proctor is not faking when he says they’ve been able to cherry-pick their way through the field of potential employees. “The people we’re working with are all seasoned professionals of diverse origin and I’m delighted with their quality and skill,” says Proctor, who, despite rumours to the contrary, hardly seems to consider the SABC a worthy poaching ground for e-tv staff. His management staff, he emphasises, all appeared before the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and even his detractors seem to have slunk back into their fighting corners.

Of all the cherries in the e-tv orchard one of the plumpest is the support of foreign mega-partner Time Warner, which owns 20% of the company’s shares. This means that e-tv has the rights to all Time Warner products, as well as to an international brand- building machine that will allow e-tv to choose its self-promotional strategy with characteristic care and flair.

With expected advertising revenue of R200- million in its first year, and its own corporate ad-spend budget of R60-million, e-tv has ad agencies salivating for what looks set to become big media business. Again, Proctor is cautious and confidential on this score. Although e-tv has not yet appointed an agency, they are, he confirms, consulting a number of ad agencies deemed to have the “special skills” required by TV broadcasting’s first free, full-spectrum entertainment competitor.

When it begins its first prime-time broadcasts on October 1, the duopoly might have a lot to worry about.