Do you remember when—?
Locally produced television programmes – especially the dramas – were so bad that it was sufficient motivation to emigrate to Siberia? Thankfully, it looks like those days are drawing to a close. South African programming is improving in both quality and quantity, and it could now almost be argued that the very best can compete on the world stage. Of course while these shows have played a crucial role, post 1994, in helping South Africans form a common identity and facilitating cross-cultural dialogue, the road has not been trouble-free. The truth is, without government intervention, the industry would not have made the strides it has.
It’s well known that all South African television stations are required, in terms of their licensing requirements, to show at least minimum quotas of locally produced content. For the commercial stations (e.tv, M-Net and SABC 3) this equates to at least 35 percent of scheduled programming in prime time. The requirements for the public broadcasters – SABC 1 and SABC 2 – are more onerous, at a minimum 55 percent.
Clearly, government’s motive in introducing local content quotas was to stimulate the local production industry. Today the broadcasters are far from resenting this involvement. M-Net’s director of local productions Carl Fischer says that the best-performing local shows give his channel exclusivity “in the best sense of the word”. In contrast, international content is available to all broadcasters only after a certain period of time.
The statistics support him. Out of M-Net’s top five shows, four are local – Carte Blanche, Egoli, Idols and Laugh Out Loud. In the top ten there are also local dramas such as Dit Wat Stom Is and Amalia. In addition, Fischer says, M-Net has high hopes for Known Gods and Binnelanders. Let’s Fix It is e.tv’s top local show this year and it remains an indisputable fact that SABC 1’s Generations is South Africa’s most-watched programme.
e.tv’s channel director Bronwyn Keene-Young concurs with Fischer on the benefits of going home-grown. “While it is expensive to make local content, and any quota needs to take account of this, we support the principle of local content quotas in developing the industry. However, local content has become such a significant audience driver most broadcasters would probably produce it even if there were no quotas.”
What’s more, local content can provide the broadcasters with an alternative revenue stream. Fischer says that M-Net has built up a local production library and hopes to be able to exploit this in other media (for example, through sales to mobile content providers) and geographies (mainly other African countries). In a similar vein, SABC 2 exported Zola 7 to African countries during its financial year ended March 2005.
According to Fischer, there are other international buyers. Although this is a tiny portion of M-Net’s business, it has grown well off a small base and he hopes it will continue to do so.
Fischer continues that it’s virtually impossible, though, to gauge the relative profitability of individual programmes – whether local or imported – as M-Net doesn’t keep individual income statements. But performance of local programmes is measured though variables such as the programme’s rating in M-Net’s important markets, feedback from subscribers and an assessment of the impact on schedules – particularly if there is pull-through viewing to later shows.
Overall, the broadcasters are cagey about how much they actually spend on local content – except to note that it has increased. Fischer says that M-Net’s spend on local programmes has nearly doubled over the last three years.
Keene-Young says that e.tv has focused on building its daily youth soap – Backstage – in the last three years, while the balance of its local drama programming consisted of sitcoms. Most of e.tv’s spend on local programming has been in the soapie or sitcom categories.
What is clear [see box] is that all the broadcasters comfortably exceed their minimum requirement.
Burgert Muller, an associate producer at Franz Marx Productions, confirms that the local production industry has had a good time of it, although this has led to skills shortages in certain key areas. Nonetheless, Muller believes the good times will continue to roll.
Although Keene-Young is positive on the outlook, she believes that costs are the biggest issues facing both broadcasters and producers. “If we were an export-driven programming market we could afford to invest more in local production. At present, the only revenue we earn from local production is through advertising – and the costs of the local show are generally disproportionate to the advertising revenue we can earn around the show.”
Fischer says that it’s difficult to pinpoint exactly which genres will see the biggest growth, but he hopes that a local drama series will “break out” locally and internationally soon. This should be the catalyst for a plethora of copycats – although it is the big brands that will succeed. In addition, he believes that South Africa is getting better at comedy, which is a universal genre.
On the negative side, Fischer believes we are unlikely to see any original homegrown reality TV.
Keene-Young believes that local drama and locally-produced reality formats are the genres with the greatest growth potential.
Arguably, the biggest growth area for South African telelvision production is likely to be outside of the traditional English and Afrikaans language strongholds. SABC has already had success – particularly with Generations – in subtitling local dramas that don’t only use English. Overall, SABC 1 delivered 42 percent of programming in African languages in the twelve months to March 2005. More importantly, it plans to increase its African language content to 50 percent in the next six months.
SABC 2’s prime time was “dominated” by languages other than English in its 2005 financial year and prime time delivery of African languages increased 1,4 percent.
Keene-Young agrees that the outlook for local production in indigenous languages is good, adding that multi-lingual local drama draws broad audiences, as is evident in the ratings on Scandal and Generations.
There are, however, two possible blots on what should – otherwise – be a good growth story.
Firstly, M-Net’s open time window will close from the end of March 2007.
Fischer says this will change what M-Net has to do in terms of its local content obligations. Currently, 35 percent of open time shows have to be local and 20 percent of this has to be drama. But the quota falls to 8 percent for the rest of the day. No decisions have been taken as yet as the group is still working through its scheduling after 1 April 2007. Says Fischer: “Something has to give – in this case the local content schedule as local production spend has been costed on open time revenue”.
But he adds that the overall local content acquired by M-Net won’t necessarily drop as a result of the closing of open time, as the station will look at a combination of reducing costs and increasing revenue.
Secondly, Muller says that there are already bottlenecks in terms of good crew and actors. Skills development in all areas is an imperative if the current growth momentum is to be sustained.
Nonetheless, Fischer remains upbeat. He hopes that by the end of next year most of M-Net’s top ten shows will be local, although he cautions that viewers will always demand a mix of the best international and South African shows.