Staff fear that infighting and an ongoing financial crisis will soon lead to the TV station’s demise
Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane
A “cowboy style” management dictates the running of e.tv, causing a massive staff turnover that threatens the survival of the free-to-air broadcaster, staff members say.
The controversial three-year-old TV station is racked by infighting. This, the shenanigans of top management and an ongoing financial crisis, say e.tv journalists, is contributing to rock-bottom staff morale.
In the last financial year e.tv racked up a reported R300-million loss. The station failed to comment on the losses it is currently making. E.tv journalists fear that unless something changes radically the station will soon close down.
Ironically, financial losses come at a time when e.tv is putting up a good showing against its main rival, SABC3, in the race for viewers.
At the heart of the problem, say staff, are CEO Marcel Golding, a former trade unionist, and channel director Quraysh Patel.
“It’s like a military coup going on,” an e.tv insider told the Mail & Guardian, adding that the company does not even contribute to medical aid and pension benefits.
After chat-show host Phat Joe left the station last month for the SABC, he reportedly said that e.tv was “worse than Afghanistan”.
Another journalist said: “People are afraid to approach Golding with the issues at e.tv because he is so supportive of Patel. In fact both of them don’t talk, they scream and shout all the time and get hysterical. They will do the same to you [the M&G].”
A heated Golding refused to comment to detailed M&G questions. He denied the allegations, including that staff morale was rock-bottom.
“How else would there be growth?” He said the problem for the station is that the SABC is poaching staff, such as Phat Joe, with exorbitant salaries.
“There are no two sides of the story, no different points of view, only one. I have the facts; I know the truth. Write what you want to write,” Golding told the M&G.
However, the list of resignations at the station is phenomenal. In many cases the average stay of key personnel at e.tv is said to be less than one year. The exodus from e.tv includes high-profile figures such as commercial director Quentin Green, whom the station hailed as its saviour when it hired him in 1999. He recently joined TV Africa.
A former programme controller, Ilse van Schalkwyk, told the M&G that she was demoted by Patel and all her duties were taken away.
“He demoted me, then fired me after changing the reporting structure,” says Van Schalkwyk. “It’s worse than what people say; all the people in positions of power are puppets.”
Van Schalkwyk alleges that most of the staff are unhappy with management but have nowhere else to go.
“Patel is abusive. He gets hysterical and starts shouting at staff. I left because of him,” she claims.
Last week financial director Astrud Hillman and head of marketing Jerry Mpufane resigned. Four sales executives resigned around the same time and some have taken up positions at the SABC.
Several staff told the M&G that many “people in the newsroom are looking for other jobs”.
In recent months senior news reporters Guy Oliver, Anton Snyman, Donald Chauke and sports personality Edward Griffiths have also left the station.
Last week assignments editor Barbara Boswell was suspended and is now seeking advice from her lawyers.
The latest controversy centres on head of news Jimi Matthews, who the channel claims is merely on leave. But well-placed sources say he is being pushed out. The real story, e.tv journalists say, is that Patel was unhappy about executive producer Rob Brown’s story on anthrax and asked Matthews to fire him. Matthews refused and Patel is now apparently trying to get him fired. E.tv’s official line is that Patel asked Matthews to take another week off work. Brown has now been demoted.
Further evidence of deeply unhappy staff-management relations was last week’s incident when arts producer Roger Lucey won an arts award of R10 000 but had to relinquish the money to the company. E.tv also gave him a disciplinary letter for apparently breaching company rules by talking to the media about arts not getting the same recognition that sports does.
The Toasty Show, which was axed a few weeks ago, is now considering suing the station for pulling the plug on it.
The show’s crew received its first indication that it was being canned from a newspaper report.
A former Toasty Show staffer told the M&G: “When we tried to enter the e.tv premises the locks had been changed and we were barred from entering. When one employee tried to enter the premises she was bounced off by a heavy.”
Staff members at e.tv are also unhappy about not receiving pension and medical aid benefits, especially when it is rumoured that the two heads of the company, Golding and Patel, earn seriously competitive salaries of about R90 000 and R70 000 a month respectively.
“The two are running the company by threats, shouting and screaming and making people cry. Patel surrounds himself with sycophants. If anyone questions anything he fires them. He is now doing everything sales, sponsorships, news directing and commissioning of stories. And many contracts and sponsorships worth millions have been lost through his style,” claims a senior e.tv staff member.
Some of the contracts and sponsorships that have been lost by e.tv, insiders allege, include the Grahamstown Festival; a soccer programme to be sponsored by South African Breweries (worth R6-million); and Miss South Africa.
E.tv started as an empowerment company with strong links to the National Union of Mineworkers of which Golding was a leader. But staff are now pointing to a betrayal of democratic principles and proper labour relations because of the shambles in the company.
The M&G faxed detailed questions to Patel and Golding about staff allegations and labour relations, but they refrained from responding to specific allegations.
Additional reporting by Nawaal Deane and Marianne Merten