It’s been said before: the strength of radio news, current affairs programming and talk radio in South Africa cannot be undervalued in terms of influence and reach. This is a sector that is quite simply massive. SABC’s radio news department alone broadcasts to an estimated 17-million listeners (or about two-thirds of all radio listeners) daily. When Pippa Green, head of SABC news is asked how it feels to be the largest purveyor of news in the country, she says wryly, “I suppose we are but we don’t really think of it that way.” With an audience of this size, that’s good to hear. Green asserts that the SABC editorial teams are well aware of the dangers of abuse of power. “We have a news team of over 300 people. It’s important that everyone buys into and understands basic common values of honesty and integrity.”
Words like “honesty”, “integrity”, “relevance” and “impartiality” have become de rigueur within a mainstream South African radio news environment determined to assert itself as both professional and independent. Yusuf Abramjee, Primedia Broadcasting’s group head of news and talk programming, stresses the journalism basics that underlie his brands, one being the clear distinction between opinion and fact: “Many of our talk radio topics are carried over from the news bulletins; therefore much of our programming depends on the news. But of course the actual news stories must be totally objective.”
Abramjee and Talk Radio 702 news editor Katy Katopodis are adamant that this focus on established news principles is a key factor in the station’s upward trajectory. “702 Eyewitness News has become an enormously powerful brand,” says Katopodis. “I think people know that [our] reporters aren’t afraid to be in the firing line, and that reaffirms the relevance and the impact of the broadcast.”
Another key element is that part of 702’s formula is to look for news that will affect the listener. “Obviously big international news, like the Zimbabwe elections, will be aired. But we also look for local elements. While the death of the Pope certainly affected a number of South Africans at a certain level, tampering [with] traffic lights in Gauteng has its place as an equally relevant news item for local road users.”
Abramjee points out that 702’s Rams figures have shown positive growth since the repositioning of the brand, and have remained consistent over the past year. “Our Breaking News brand in particular has grown tremendously,” he says. “When we have big news, we mobilise the entire news team and this feeds both our news bulletins and our talk shows.” Katopodis cites some of the big cases that 702 Breaking News has been responsible for cracking. “The Wynne Lieberthal case had huge repercussions. We had members of his family asking us to drop the whole thing, but we pursued it and eventually he was struck from the medical role.”
The news of the death of Leigh Matthews was another huge national story that 702 got first. “This was really a matter of timing riding on the back of the credibility we had established with the Matthews family,” says Katopodis. “One of our reporters was making a courtesy call to Mrs Matthews to see how the family were doing, and Mrs Matthews just told her ‘Lee’s dead, they’ve found her body.’ We debated it and decided to run with the story even before the police had held a briefing.”
While detractors of talk radio will tell you that the “call in” is for lonely hearts looking for Warhol’s proverbial fifteen minutes, that theory gets no more than a laugh from Abramjee and Katopodis. More important to them is the list of stories they have run on their talk shows (stories piggybacked off news items) that have ultimately led to positive action. “The recent abduction of a newborn baby from a hospital is a good example,” says Katopodis. “Once police found the baby, people were asking why the DNA test would take so long [two weeks] before the baby’s identity was confirmed and it could be returned to its mother. 702 had a number of callers who were outraged about this. Finally, the Police Commissioner called in to say they would speed up the process. They did, and mother and baby were reunited within three days.”
But Primedia doesn’t have the monopoly on social action off commercial radio. There’s another show in KwaZulu-Natal, put out by Kagiso Media’s East Coast Radio (ECR), that’s all about getting these real-world results. The station’s weekly “Consumerwatch” programme is informed by two simple questions: “who is this affecting and what can we do about it?”
Presented by award-winning consumer journalist and specialist writer for Fair Lady Wendy Knowler, Consumerwatch has been running for just over a year and has established itself as a 30-minute no-bullshit consumer-fighting machine. Indeed, such is the emphasis on independence that from the outset both Wendy and producer Di Macpherson were adamant that the show be entirely neutral.
Says Macpherson: “It would be the height of irony to have a show about consumer rights and scams sponsored by a company. How independent would we be perceived to be? How much sway would the advertiser hold? These were our very valid concerns and the management team at ECR supported us. More importantly, the sales team accepted the terms and supported us, despite us sending ripples of fear down their backs every time a client is mentioned.”
The growth in listenership for ECR during this half-hour slot has been phenomenal. At the beginning of 2004, the station was sitting with 203,000 listeners in the 1.30pm to 2pm slot. By the end of the year figures were up to 286,000 (a 41% increase). Consumerwatch has rapidly became a much talked-about feature and now generates hundreds of emails and faxes each month, the sheer volume of which is indicative of how many people have been on the receiving end of shoddy consumer service.
Knowler explains that the biggest challenges are to tackle the issues without opening themselves up to legal action, and to present complex situations in a listener-friendly way. “The driving question centres on listener relevance. How many other listeners could this complaint affect, and could they learn from it or be spared a similar problem?” Knowler observes that generally it’s the bigger companies with reputations they value and wish to protect that respond positively to consumer complaints. “Old Mutual, for instance, when faced with a complaint from a client in a wheelchair who pointed out that the main branch in central Durban lacked a wheelchair entrance, which led to him being both inconvenienced and humiliated by staff, responded by promising to redesign the entrance. And they did.”
The legal aspect is tricky but the team ensure they do thorough research. “The reason we’re not getting sued is because we do our homework. We don’t make wild, irresponsible accusations. We go by the book and companies are always given the chance to state their side of the story,” says Knowler. Macpherson adds: “Recently we were threatened with a R3-million lawsuit for a story we did on alleged dubious practices by an appliance repair outlet in Durban. We received a couple of threatening faxes, one that went so far as to demand that the R3-million be paid within 15 days or else we’d receive a summons. We didn’t pay and we’re still waiting for the legal documents!”
So for this sector it all comes back to entrenched news values. How’s this one from the SABC’s Pippa Green? “If we sum up our plans for going forward they would include the need to take the narrative from all four corners of the country and reflect the mood and changes therein.”
That’s got to be good news.