The final list was drawn from nominations submitted by the broad media industry, and numbered around 100 at the cut-off date in May. The editorial board’s decision on the list of five finalists was heatedly debated, but ultimately unanimous. This year the board has also voted on a winner, the Media Woman of the Year 2005. The vote for this ultimate achievement was not unanimous, but when you read the profiles of the finalists you’ll understand why we needed to make the call on a slim majority. There were no arguments, however, on 2005’s Rising Star. The Media is going out on a limb with this remarkable youngster: she’s going to be one of South Africa’s best.
Media Woman of the Year 2005
Libby Lloyd
Libby Lloyd is CEO of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), a newly established statutory body that, according to its mission statement, “aims to assist in building an environment where a diverse, vibrant and creative media flourishes and reflects the needs of all South Africans.” To achieve these objectives, the MDDA encourages and promotes the participation of historically disadvantaged groups in the ownership and control of media. It also channels resources (financial and otherwise) into community and small commercial media projects.
As The Media wrote in its pages in the Mail & Guardian last year, the MDDA has inspired its fair share of cynical comment – “there have been similar initiatives in the past, and they have failed.” Depending on how one defines it, we wrote, the MDDA is the third organisation set up in the last decade to tackle the related problems of limited media access and high barriers to entry in South Africa’s rural and underdeveloped areas.
But we also wrote that a critical difference between the MDDA and its predecessors is that it is a function of parliamentary legislation, which means funding is not voluntary. MDDA resources are drawn from a partnership between the government and private media – including Johncom, Caxton, Media24 and Independent Newspapers — and amounts to around R17-million a year until 2009.
Another critical difference between the MDDA and its forerunners is Libby herself, and her day-to-day management of the agency’s mandate and resources. In his speech during the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) budget vote in April this year, Minister Essop Pahad outlined some of the achievements to date: “The [MDDA] received applications totaling over R50-million. So far it has provided support to 55 different media projects, covering all provinces. They include both non-profit and small commercial media; existing projects and new media projects; projects for specific communities of interest and geographical communities.”
Pahad went on to note that, aside from financial support, “the MDDA is tapping material support for the small media sector. With the help of the advertising industry, for example, it laid on three workshops attended by 300 people from media organisations across the country who wanted to learn how to access advertising, a critical need for the sustainability of small media. It is working with the Audit Bureau of Circulation, the Universal Service Agency, the Department of Communications, Icasa, National Film and Video Foundation and the Open Society Foundation, as well as others, to leverage support for media development and diversity.”
Libby’s past experience places her in a perfect position to steer initiatives of such vital national significance. She joined the MDDA after working for over a year as an independent consultant, a period during which she assisted the SABC in reviewing and developing new editorial policies covering language use and educational broadcasting. Prior to this she served as a councillor at the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), and then, after the IBA merged with the telecommunications regulator, on the current regulator Icasa.
Highlights during her time at the regulator included licensing of the first free-to-air television station, licensing of commercial and community radio stations, developing a code of practice for broadcasters protecting children, and the development of South African content policies for broadcasters.
Libby started her career as a print journalist on the Daily Dispatch, Daily News and Sunday Tribune, before moving into radio journalism in the newsroom of Capital Radio. She became involved in media policy issues through her work in assisting with the establishment of the Association of Democratic Journalists in the 1980s, where she was responsible for looking at policy issues affecting media freedom.
She has participated in a range of structures established to draft the new broadcasting laws and policies under a democratic government. She has also been involved in media training – focusing on skills for public and community radio managers and journalists. In the 1990s she headed the radio training programme of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism.
Libby has also been more than active on the gender empowerment front, having worked for the Speak women’s media project – an alternative magazine set up to tell the stories of rural and working class women in South Africa. Whilst working at Speak she participated in establishing the National Community Radio Forum and contributing towards the establishment of the broadcast framework for the post-1994 South Africa – with a particular focus on gender implications.
Finalist
Jenny Crwys-Williams
Few people can boast of having interviewed the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Joanne Harris, Salley Vickers, John Connolly, Alexander McCall Smith, Ian Rankin, Mariane Keyes and Albie Sacks. And that’s just in the past two years.
When a hot author hits the New York Times best-seller list, followers of the Jenny Crwys-Williams afternoon programme on Talk Radio 702 ask themselves not if she will be interviewing them, but when. Jenny’s literary clout is legendary. She’s permanently switched on to global fiction trends, and the people who create them. When she announces her “book of the year”, the major book dealers know to get it in stock – as experience shows, it will fly out of the bookstores on her word alone.
But while three hours of prime-time radio is a great platform from which to launch yourself as the “queen of quality”, it’s not just her radio show that has cornered Jenny the literary market. Her credentials as a woman of culture stretch back over a couple of decades. Her international career as a journalist began in the United Kingdom, and some of her earliest freelance work was produced for such Fleet Street flagships as the Guardian and Daily Telegraph.
In South Africa, where she was born, her CV includes the titles of woman’s editor at The Natal Mercury and Johannesburg bureau chief at Cosmopolitan. She was the founding editor of magazines such as Excellence, Changes and Choices, as well as the first Sunday magazine out of Independent Newspapers, Sunday.
Not content with managing other journalists’ work, Jenny found time in 1993 to contribute to the December 1993 edition of French Vogue, edited by Nelson Mandela. She was in fact the sole contributor from South Africa. It was also during this period that Jenny was writing her first three books (see below) and building her radio persona.
Despite the print credentials, Jenny’s open about the fact that the airwaves are her first love. She began at Talk Radio 702, the country’s first talk radio station, at a time of intense political and social transformation. It was in the months leading up to South Africa’s first democratic elections – “what better time,” she asks, “than to begin in the midst of profound change?” – that she launched into the business of converting listeners to her own ethos of quality, an ethos which has subsequently turned Jenny Crwys-Williams the journalist into Jenny Crwys-Williams the brand.
Quality it may be, elitist it isn’t. Her breadth of knowledge and wealth of experience means Jenny is as comfortable talking about Harry Potter as she is discussing the political situation leading to the war in Iraq with award-winning political journalist Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame). From fine wines to jacaranda trees, from the common cold to fashion trends, Jenny makes her show accessible to as many South Africans as possible.
“Jenny is a great asset to 702, not just because of her knowledge and experience, but because she has an innate understanding of her listeners and their needs,” says station manager Yusuf Abramjee. “She is a consummate professional.”
Then there are her books. As an author she’s written I Want Love In South Africa, Dear God (1987), South Africa’s Ten Best (1987,’88 and ’89), South African Dispatches: Two Centuries of the Best of South African Journalism (1988), A Country at War 1939-1945, Food for Thought (1994) and the Penguin Dictionary of South African Quotations (1994 and ’99). The last is a bestseller in South Africa and has been published in Holland, the UK and Australia. She has also edited Banana Sunday, the South African Book of Lists and The Zanzi Bar.
Jenny is currently working on her final dictionary of South African quotations: it’ll probably come out this year and has been termed, “as good a guide to our times as you are likely to get anywhere”. A bit like Jenny herself.
Finalist
Clare O’Neil
Since September 2001 Clare O’Neil has been the general manager of SABC Television Airtime Sales, overseeing a staff complement of 70 to deliver on the largest advertising sales targets in South African media. Clare’s core responsibility is meeting the budgeted revenues for classic and programme sponsorship sales across the three television platforms of SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 in all of the public broadcaster’s operational regions – Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.
The financial reporting period to March 2005 was the division’s best year ever. Clare’s team came in R280-million over budget for the 12 months, a budget which had been set at a massive R1,7-billion. “To be fair to the result, we have to look at the growth that happened across the entire media industry,” says Clare. “That growth was 22 percent up over the previous year, and can be boiled down to confidence in the economy and advertiser confidence. Television itself grew by 25 percent, but more importantly, SABC TV grew by 28 percent.”
Growing above the market was a key objective of Clare’s. “If I wanted to grow with the market I could have just parked off and drank champagne,” she quips. “That three percent is about what we did, rather than the momentum that exists in the marketplace. It can be attributed to stable schedules, good local content, and a rise in viewership. We gained 159 new clients in the period and focused on growing our annual commitment clients.”
To place Clare’s achievement in perspective, estimates on advertising revenue across the entire media industry over the last year have been somewhere north of R9-billion (factoring in discounting, bulk deals and the like), which places SABC TV somewhere in the region of 20 percent of the total.
Aside from hitting – or flying past – the numbers, Clare is also responsible for managing acceptable cost to sales ratios, maintaining productive relationships with the SABC’s executive committees, implementing effective trade marketing strategies, delivering on employment equity targets, and ensuring that her division adheres to Icasa regulations on programme sponsorships and classic sales.
There’s a lot there that can take a salesperson’s eye off the ball, but Clare’s track record shows that, on the commercial side, she is one of South African media’s most accomplished individuals. Prior to joining the SABC she was the managing director of Media Initiative Africa, where her role was delivering effective media planning and buying services to a client base that included Unilever, Johnson and Johnson and the First Rand group. In the role she in fact won the highly sought-after Unilever business (the largest account in the country) in a pitch against Mindshare. The agency’s financial year end to June 2001 showed that Clare had grown the client base by 30 percent over the previous year and increased the profit margin from 1,4 percent to 5 percent.
From August 1997 to October 1999 Clare was commercial sales director at e.tv, having been part of the Midi Television licence bid team. She created the e.tv sales division from a zero base, and procured R21-million in advertising revenue within the first three months of broadcast – without audience ratings. She also spent a full seven years at M-Net, where her last position was general manager of marketing at Oracle Airtime Sales.
As for the immediate future, Clare’s main focus is pulling in SABC TV’s next budget, which has been ratcheted up to R2-billion. “The momentum is continuing,” she says. “I’m giving it my best, but you’ve got to work at it. As quickly as it comes, it can go.”
Finalist
Phylicia Oppelt
As author of a regular column published in the Sunday Times between 2000 and 2004, Phylicia Oppelt garnered national respect for providing penetrating social and political commentary on a country in flux.
In the column she regularly expressed her views on race relations, the ongoing inferior status of women, and the ongoing poverty that afflicts millions of her less-privileged fellow South Africans. Her probing and provocative opinions earned the admiration of Sunday Times readers across the spectrum, not necessarily because these readers always agreed with her, but because of the fact that her opinion at core was nothing if not fair, gentle, respectful and even-handed.
During this time she also edited the opinion pages and intellectual heart of the Sunday Times, the “Insight” section, in a manner that stimulated critical debate.
In January 2005, Phylicia was appointed the first woman editor of the Daily Dispatch, based in East London. The paper principally serves the eastern half of the Eastern Cape, one of South Africa’s poorest provinces, and spiritual home of the African National Congress.
Her appointment, at 35, makes her the only woman editor of a daily newspaper in South Africa, and one of only two currently serving woman newspaper editors in the country.
Phylicia has committed herself to re-engineering the Daily Dispatch in a manner that builds on its proud roots, laid, amongst others, by Donald Woods and his relationship with Steve Bantu Biko. Her aim is to lead the paper towards becoming an independent, quality title that is as relevant and constructive in the economic and social development of the province as it is critical of the apathy and mediocrity that threatens that very development.
Phylicia has inherited a news organisation with a young newsroom staff and has committed herself to investing in these reporters, with the aim of ensuring that they are capable of reaching the top of their profession.
To date, under her leadership, the staff’s renewed enthusiasm is clearly apparent. The Daily Dispatch has begun to publish hard-hitting journalism on a par with any national newspaper. Just one example is the paper’s coverage of the fraud case involving the former MEC for Agriculture Max Mamase and his wife Neo Moerane-Mamase, the former MEC for Social Development.
Phylicia has already initiated a number of management changes on the paper and has appointed several women into positions of leadership. This includes the appointment of Tanya Jonker-Bryce as managing editor. The Daily Dispatch is also undergoing a redesign process under her leadership, with the aim of providing improved, value-added coverage for readers.
Being the first woman editor of the Daily Dispatch has come with its challenges. The newspaper, with its 123-year history, has seen a succession of white male editors. So the past six months have been a time of modified perceptions – that a woman at the helm can be as efficient, creative and financially successful as her male counterparts.
Phylicia is keenly aware that many young women working at the Daily Dispatch and elsewhere have come to regard her as a role model. She is determined to ensure they are not disappointed.
Finalist
Lucille van Niekerk
34-year-old Lucille van Niekerk is the only woman in South Africa to hold the position of general manager on a daily newspaper. In an environment characteristically dominated by men, she is responsible for the overall management of Beeld, a job that involves steering and motivating a staff of over 500. Her portfolio encompasses the strategic positioning of the newspaper in South Africa’s notoriously competitive media landscape.
Lucille began her career in 1993 as media liaison for Beeld. Her first promotion was to senior media liaison, then two years as sales manager, which saw her promoted to senior advertising manager, a position she held for five years. She was appointed as the first female general manager of the universally respected Afrikaans daily in 2004.
The figures out of Nielsen Media Research show that for the five years April 2000 to March 2005, Beeld pulled in a remarkable R1,33-billion in advertising revenue, almost double the closest Afrikaans title on the list. These, of course, were the years in which Lucille was actively involved in driving the sales process. In the last year, under her stewardship as general manager, Beeld showed an 11 percent increase in year-on-year revenue, from R299-million to R333-million (April ’03 to March ’04 vs. April ’04 to March ’05: Nielsen Media Research).
Beyond these statistics, it is Lucille’s stated objective to introduce technologies and features that will actively enhance Beeld‘s growth strategy. Over the last 12 months a number of new products have been launched under her guidance, including Wes Beeld, Kampus and University of Johannesburg Beeld. Her team have also developed a number of new revenue streams off strategic partnerships with, amongst others, Vodacom and SABC2’s 7de Laan.
Beeld‘s success, however, is not just economic. Lucille’s business ethic is the “triple-bottom line” approach, which is geared to ensure that the paper’s value is more than just profit or brand. “The Beeld Children’s Fund has been running for many years and enjoys a very successful track record,” says Lucille. “In the 2003/04 financial year it brought in R2-million and it looks like we’ll be passing the R2.5 million mark in 2004/05. The money is donated by Beeld readers as well as corporate sponsors.”
As another reflection of her managerial prowess, Lucille was chosen as one of five mentors in the business unit of Media24’s northern area, to assist with the personal development and mentorship of protégées’ within the company. The year-long programme was initiated in 2004, and Lucille was part of the first team to be activated. Of her two protégées, one was female, which perfectly suited Lucille’s emphasis on gender empowerment.
“Since 1994 huge changes have taken place in the business world, but a lot still needs to happen in the South African business landscape for it to be truly representative of women,” she says. “For instance, only 10.7 percent of the directors of companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange are women and only 6.2 percent of these companies have female CEOs. Hard work, perseverance and strength helps women deliver the same, and even better results than male counterparts.”
Rising Star 2005
Tembisa Gebeda
When the 27-year-old Tembisa Gebeda started anchoring the Jozi Live show on SAfm on Tuesday nights, it was, according to her, “very old, very white and very male.” She pauses a second to add, with a smile, “and usually very drunk.” In the last 8 months the show has changed substantially. The age demographic now goes from late retirement right down to early 20s. The first two hours of the 4-hour show are 60% white, with the last half moving more into the younger urban black audience and a discussion focus on empowerment and small business development. The on-air debates inspired by this mix can get fiery, but then again, as Tembisa says, ” you’re hired to have a heated debate.”
One thing Tembisa has been hotly debating with herself is giving up the radio show to present the SABC Africa business and economics television slot, which airs Monday to Friday as part of the 60 Minutes Live in Africa programme. She’s been producing the insert since its inception – everything from identifying the stories to finding visuals, scripting and packaging – and was employed on the proviso that she’d eventually become the anchor. Well, that happened on July 4 (happy independence day?), and if an alternative plan isn’t made Tembisa will be sorely missed by her Jozi Live listeners. But at least her other radio show isn’t going anywhere – she’s also got the SAfm gospel music show Living Sounds on Sunday evenings from 6pm to 7pm.
So is there anything Tembisa won’t do in broadcast? She has stood in for SAfm presenters on topics as diverse as sports, news and hit music, having started out as a production assistant on Tim Modise’s show (before he left for 702) and working with Vuyo Mbuli and the contentious (an admittedly soft euphemism) Eric Miyeni. From a production point of view, however, her background is talk-shows. Now that she’s behind the mike, she says: “I won’t talk about anything that will get me fired. And believe me, at the public broadcaster, that’s quite a lot.”
After graduating with honours in journalism from the University of Port Elizabeth and working at the region’s newspapers, Tembisa slid into broadcasting by chance. The radio bug bit her when she took the opportunity to move to Johannesburg in 2001, to do a post-graduate diploma in radio production at the National Electronic Media Institute of South Africa (Nemisa). At the end of 2002 she joined the SAfm team as an intern, and was appointed full-time a year later.
“Nemisa gave me all the training I needed,” she says. “People say a lot of things about it, but as a concept it’s wonderful. They take young people from all over the country and expose them to every facet of media, then you get to specialise. Imagine me, this bright-eyed young thing from Port Elizabeth, meeting all of these top media professionals who came to lecture. It fully prepared me.”
The Media is going out on a rare limb on Tembisa – we say she is going to be huge. How’s this? “At 27 I actually think I’m behind schedule. I should be doing a whole lot more. I haven’t even gotten to half of my list.”