In a briefing to government and the media at its headquarters in Auckland Park today, the SABC announced a R240,3-million net profit for the 2004/2005 financial year. ‘These are the best financial results in the almost 70-year history of the corporation,” said the corporation’s chief executive Dali Mpofu, who officially took over the position from acting CEO Solly Mokoetle at the beginning of August.
The financial year to March 31 2005 showed total revenues of R3,314-billion, up 22 percent on the previous year’s performance. Operating expenditure increased by 8 percent, resulting in the SABC posting a significant improvement on the R1,7-million profit for the financial year to March 2004.
‘These financial results are an important part of enabling us to deliver on our mandate,” said Mpofu. ‘We have increased our delivery in local languages, and now deliver in 13 languages across all our platforms—[and] we have invested more than R1-billion in local content.” Addressing the remaining public broadcast deliverables, Mpofu also claimed that the SABC’s expanded news and current affairs coverage helped it ‘perform better than the competition.”
Mokoetle, now full-time in his old position as chief operating officer, remarked that the results are a ‘turnaround from the 1995/1996 financial year, when we were facing a R600- million deficit and this edifice was about to fall apart.” Mokoetle added that the SABC has ‘successfully delivered across all key indicators of the public service mandate, as defined by the regulator Icasa.”
Explaining the earnings growth, SABC chief financial officer Robin Nicholson pointed to the R422,3-million rise in advertising revenues (up 42 percent) and the R25,9-million rise in sports and programme sponsorships (up 16 percent). Nicholson also highlighted TV licence revenues, which performed R98,3-million better than the prior year (up 25 percent).
But as the annual report shows, the lion’s share of the accolades are due to the television airtime sales division, which grew SABC’s share to 61 percent of the total television market for the year under review (up from 57 percent). At R1,92-billion, TV advertising and sponsorship sales accounted for more than R400-million of the year-on-year growth. The report also shows that the SABC television sales division grew 3 percent ahead of a buoyant market.
SABC radio sales only managed a R30-million increase to R566-million, and its share of the total market fell from 48 percent to 44 percent. Direct government contributions, which account for 2 percent of the broadcaster’s revenue, dropped from R76-million to R49-million.
On the expenditure side, the SABC’s revenues do not appear to have resulted in a significantly expanded marketing budget. Spend for the year came in at R139-million, a 7 percent increase against the previous year. Comparatively, the spend increase for the 2003/2004 financial year was 16 percent.
The SABC is expected to announce its appointed advertising and media agencies later this week.
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