Zola 7
The SABC has broken its promise to pay independent television producers, who are owed more than R10-million — forcing some of them to the brink of bankruptcy.
This week, television producers — who are normally publicity hungry — shrank back from the limelight and refused to be quoted, as rumours circulated of businesses being shut down and staff retrenched.
The Mail & Guardian can confirm that on April 30 the hit soapie Isidingo was pulled off air by its producer, Endemol South Africa.
An Endemol representative was sent to the SABC to confiscate tapes prior to broadcast, according to producers in the know. As a result, a portion of the money owed was released to the production house and Isidingo hit the airwaves at the last minute.
Earlier this month the M&G reported that television industry representatives had gathered in Johannesburg to try to establish how much money the broadcaster owed, and to whom.
A subsequent press release noted that more than 25 of the country’s most popular shows have been affected, including Isidingo, Zola 7, Generations and Home Affairs.
At the meeting, on March 26, an emergency coalition was set up consisting of the Independent Producers’ Organisation (IPO), the South African Screen Federation and the Producers’ Alliance.
A five-hour meeting with the SABC followed on April 8, at which acting chief executive Gabs Mampone and other senior executives gave the assurance that the corporation would honour its financial obligations.
But last week the SABC told some producers that it would not be able to make the first of its monthly back-payments.
A producer of two hit shows from a small production house said he is owed about R500 000 and has had to take out a bank overdraft: ”Producers are now cash-flowing the SABC which has run out of money.”
Another said that when they knew they were not being paid, they ”immediately went into pause on an upcoming multilingual drama on SABC 1”.
Desirée Markgraaff of the IPO said on Thursday that her organisation is waiting for the SABC to ”clarify its position. Our concern is that the financial situation is so dire that they cannot pay a few million here and there to the people putting content on air,” Markgraaff said.
”Nobody is interrogating what is going on at the SABC. It doesn’t seem anybody from government is saying ‘we have to deploy somebody into this building right now to prevent this crisis from deepening’.
”We, the coalition, are desperately appealing to government. We will contact the department of communications. We have sent letters to the minister and to Parliament’s portfolio committee — but everybody is in recess right now and there is the inauguration, so we know we’re going to get lost in the noise.”
Markgraaff said the IPO was concerned about the state of the production industry and the ”breakdown of a critical public institution”.
This week yet another major organisation, Save Our SABC (SOS), joined the fray in support of the independent producers, saying that it had already met deputy Minister of Communications Roy Padayachee on the issue.
SOS was set up last year when the SABC disclosed that it was R700-million in the red. It consists of major labour organisations, media NGOs and the Freedom of Expression Institute.