The South African Broadcasting Corporation has been awarded exclusive rights to provide the feed at the African National Congress (ANC) conference in Polokwane in December to all other broadcasters, Business Day reported on Tuesday.
Five SABC cameras would be allowed in the plenary hall during open sessions and would be providing ”clean feeds” and unedited material — without branding — to other broadcasters, the newspaper reported.
However, the local and international broadcasters that will rely on the SABC material have expressed mixed views on the move.
Some argued that the feed would be subject to the SABC’s editorial discretion, but ANC spokesperson Steyn Speed dismissed this, saying that one of the conditions stipulated was that the SABC would provide the feed free and ”completely unedited” to other broadcasters. He said the reason for limiting the number of broadcasters was because of space constraints in the hall, the business daily reported.
Broadcasters said they were told last week that, for security reasons, the number of people entering and exiting the hall would be limited.
One broadcaster said having just one broadcaster in charge of the feed was a risk as it could switch off the feed whenever it wanted, or selectively not show audience reaction, for example.
But another broadcaster, which provides international coverage, said it had worked with the SABC in the past and expected the broadcast quality to be good.
Neither SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago nor CEO Dali Mpofu was available for comment, Business Day reported.
Meanwhile, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has expressed concern over the awarding of exclusive rights to the SABC to broadcast the national conference.
”We doubt whether the SABC can be relied upon to provide objective and politically independent coverage of the conference,” Cosatu said in a statement on Tuesday. – Sapa