Independent producers contracted to the SABC have complained that their problems with the public broadcaster have reached crisis point, with potentially grave repercussions for the production industry and broadcasters.
The Independent Producers’ Organisation (IPO) and the Producers’ Alliance (TPA) set out their grievances in a five-page document to the SABC content hub earlier this month.
The document lists a string of complaints, including:
- production budgets that have remained unreasonably low for six years and which ignore reasonable professional rates and the effects of inflation;
- slow contract turnaround, which affects producers’ ability to deliver on commissions and undermines their ability to deliver quality products;
- inexperienced commissioning editors who sometimes make creative decisions that are beyond their competencies;
- development and scripting that are becoming increasingly prescriptive, over-invasive and patronising; and
- training decisions for commissioning editors that do not solicit producers’ input.
The IPO and TPA said these problems were raised 18 months ago, but continued despite several meetings and forums. It was unclear who at the SABC was responsible.
Chief among the impediments, producers say, is the isolated, ‘silo-style†structure of SABC departments, which contributes to rampant buck-passing on problems such as late contracts and missed payments,and subjects producers to the whims of individuals in the content hub, channels, budget evaluators and, on occasion, the SABC board.
‘Dealing with the SABC is like wading through a swampland,†said Mfundi Vundla of Morula Pictures. ‘The bureaucracy is anti-business. Our contract for Generations is six months overdue. As a more established production company we can absorb that, but there is no way a small guy can survive such delays.â€
Vundla added: ‘You can negotiate the price of a production with a commissioning editor, then after the final decision, the SABC will chip away at your budget.â€
He said that ownership of intellectual property was key to giving an incentive to involve themselves in canvassing foreign markets to buy their work. The status quo, where the SABC owned all intellectual property, was counterproductive. It also meant the broadcaster was sitting on piles of material which it was doing very little to sell.
IPO chairperson Desiree Markgraff said further meetings were planned next Monday and on May 4 to tackle the most pressing issues and see what has been done about the complaints. ‘We are happy that there are promises [to address our problems], but we’re not holding our breath. We’ve had these discussions before,†Markgraaff said.
Contractual delays also threaten the livelihood of actors, who may turn down offers of work only to find that the project they have committed themselves to has been delayed. The SABC has been accused of blacklisting actors it considers over-exposed.
Defending the policy of shuffling actors, the SABC’s head of drama, Kethiwe Ngcobo, said: ‘The audience will end up not believing any of these stories any more. What we’re trying to do is broaden our dramas and make them believable.â€
The SABC acknowledged receipt of the document from the producers. In a statement to the Mail & Guardian SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said the broadcaster was engaging the industry on the issues raised. On operational issues, he said: ‘The very considerable increase in the number of programmes that we commission through the industry and the number of newer companies that we engage have created internal operational pressures. We do believe, however, that for every producer that is feeling hampered … there are many that are being assisted through their productions.â€
Kganyago countered claims of unreasonable budgets, saying, ‘The SABC has its own financial viability to manage and has to match this with its desire to acquire the best possible product for the money that is available. We are conscious of the financial restraints that our budget put on some productions but are careful to ensure that our programming requests are in line with the available budgets.â€
Gay drama cut by several scenes
When the four-part, gay-themed mini-series After Nine was not broadcast as scheduled last Thursday, media and public speculation was rife about the reasons.
SABC head of drama Kethiwe Ngcobo told the Mail & Guardian this week that the delay had nothing to do with the show’s risqué content, which includes gay kissing and sex scenes, but was due to a logistical problem involving the recall of controversial mini-series Umthunzi Wentaba ‘to fix some inaccuraciesâ€.
‘After Nine does have a couple of shaky moments, performance-wise, but we are with it in terms of the story and it is going on air on May 3,†Ngcobo said.
However, she added that the SABC was treading lightly in regard to After Nine, with plans to engage the audience through post-mortems. ‘A lot of our drama is simple and does not raise difficult questions. [In this case] we’ll need to re-contextualise the show after its screening, for example in talk shows. We’re raising issues which, as a society, we haven’t seen on TV before.â€
Ngcobo insisted the broadcaster’s misgivings about the programme were not of an editorial nature, but conceded that ‘two or three scenes†had been omitted. The final product was close to the original script.
This lends credence to many producers’ complaints that the SABC’s commissioning is becoming too prescriptive.
‘We pitched a completely different story [to the one that will be screened],†said Sechaba Morojele, co-producer with Lesego Majatladi of After Nine. ‘They told us to get rid of two characters, one who had just got out prison and one who beat his wife. They wanted to get away from the view that all prisoners are black people.
‘On the one hand, they want to defuse a stereotype, on the other hand, they didn’t give us a chance to interrogate the story, which people might have related to. There is truth in some stereotypes.â€
During the editing of After Nine, which coincided with the shelving of Umthunzi Wentaba, Morojele said Ngcobo began to exercise more hands-on control, leading him to speculate that the broadcaster wanted to play it safe.
Responded Ngcobo: ‘We [as commissioning editors] have editorial control and we have to look after the editorial for the SABC. We request the changes often through debates.
‘There was no drama department in the SABC until two years ago and we’re creating expertise. We’re beginning to engage on a serious level with producers; before, everything was laissez faire.†— Kwanele Sosibo