SARAH BULLEN, Cape Town | Wednesday 11.45am
MIDI TV, holding company of free to air television station e.tv, hopes to attract new equity partners with its proposed changes in its shareholding, acting CEO Marcel Golding said on Tuesday.
Golding was speaking at the start of Midi’s application to the Independent Broadcasting Authority in Rosebank to have its licence conditions amended. Amoung the changes e.tv hopes to have approved are a change in its shareholding structure and “a more flexible definition of “local programming,” e.tv spokesman Kanthan Pillay told ZA*NOW.
Golding told the IBA that Midi wants to consolidate its local shareholders into a new company, Sabido Investments, which will be owned by Midi’s largest shareholder, Hosken Consolidated Investments.
Sabido will then hold 80% of Midi and Warner Brothers, Midi’s foreign equity partner, will hold the remaining 20%.
Sabido will be floated on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange should Midi obtain IBA approval.
The change in ownership structure comes after minority shareholder failed to honour their financial committments to the station — forcing HCI and Warner to significantly increase their capital input.
Opposing Midi’s application, Charlto Copley, director of independent producer Deadtime, said that e.tv is currently losing R20-million a month and will need further equity of R300-million before it can break even.
He said that the station has already spent R450-million in its first year of operation — its estimated costs for its first three years. The IBA has received 11 objections including those of The Independent Producers’ Organisation, media services group Sasani, the SABC and Deadtime — against Midi’s application to change its licence conditions.
The objectors have accused Midi of unfair practices and called for e.tv’s licence to be revoked altogether. The hearing, however, is not to revoke e.tv’s licence, but merely to determine whether the licence conditions can be altered.