Freedom of Expression Institute Public hearings: Portfolio Committee on Communications 17 September 2002
In yesterday's Portfolio Committee hearings, reference was made to the conflict between those who support language equity, and who therefore support the Bill, and those who do not: presumably those who are vocal opponents of the clauses in the Bill that threaten the freedom of expression. The South African Broadcasting Corporation must be made accountable to the South African public to ensure that it serves these and other public interest obligations, and new services must be created to make up for the SABC's failures, even if these measures affect the independence of the Corporation, and the broadcasting system as a whole. The lines have been drawn. There are now two camps: language equity and accountability versus freedom of expression.
We would argue that this dichotomy is false; a set of binary opposites that does not help us to understand the world, much less to change it. We need to develop a third way that dismantles the false tensions between language equity and freedom of expression, accountability and independence: a way that is neither Washington nor Moscow. This way recognises the fact that these concepts are interdependent; that true language equity and multilingualism can be realised only through the establishment of broadcasting services that are independent, but publicly accountable; anything less will address equity questions in the short term, but will undo them in the medium to long term. In turn freedom of expression is a meaningless concept if the mass of South Africa's people cannot express themselves, including through the media, in the language of their choice.
The independence and accountability questions
Numerous clauses in the Bill, if carried, will set the SABC on the road from a public broadcaster to a state broadcaster; this is ironic given the fact that these clauses are being brought in through reference to public broadcasters in other parts of the world. In this respect, yesterday the Minister of Communications cited three jurisdictions whose influence is imprinted both on the Broadcasting Act and the Broadcasting Amendment Bill: Canada, Britain and Australia. Each jurisdiction will be dealt with one by one, as they have been cited as reference points for the Bill. The public broadcasters of all three countries have detailed editorial codes, and in fact it could be said that the existence of such editorial and programming codes is an essential element of the public remit of public broadcasters, as they are clear detailed statements on what the public can expect from its broadcaster.
With respect to Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act of 1983 states that it is the responsibility of the Board to >ensure that the gathering and presentation by the Corporation of news and information is accurate and impartial according to the recognised standards of objective journalism'. To this end the Board approved editorial policies in August 2002. The Board is also expected to develop codes of practice relating to programming matters and to notify these codes to the Australian Broadcasting Authority'. These were also published at the same time. Note that it is the responsibility of the Board to approve these policies without recourse to the relevant government department.
Apart from sections on editorial principles and programme standards, the ABC policy also contains extensive sections on non-commercial programming, noting that the broadcasting of advertisements is prohibited. It also carefully controls the ABC's access to external financing and potential commercialisation of its other functions.
With respect to the adjudication of complaints, the ABC has an internal offices. If grievances are not solved there to the complainants satisfaction, the matter can then be referred to the regulator. It should also be noted that these are not the only measures to ensure public accountability: in terms of the ABC Act, the Board must establish Advisory Councils to advise it on matters relating to the ABC's programmes. There is also a positive injunction on the Board to >maintain the independence and integrity of the Board'.
The powers and functions of the CBC are dealt with in Broadcasting Act of 1991. According to the Act, the part that deals with the CBC >...shall be interpreted and applied so as to protect and enhance the freedom of expression and the journalistic, creative and programming independence enjoyed by the Corporation in the pursuit of its objects and in the exercise of its powers'. This clause is repeated again under the objects and powers of the Corporation. The Act also notes that nothing in the section dealing with financial provisions shall be interpreted or applies so as to limit the freedom of expression, etc...The Board has the powers to make numerous by-laws, but only those that relate to things like pensions schemes and gratuities for Directors have to be approved by the Governor in General.
The CBC produced the second edition of its journalistic standards and practices in 2001, which like the ABC policy contains journalistic principles and production standards, as well as sections governing non-commercial content. As an aside, it should also be noted that in 1998/99, approximately 99.1% of CBC's operating expenditure was devoted to programme production and distribution.
In terms of its Charter, the BBC is required to make a Statement of Promises to Viewers and Listeners, which sets out in detail its commitment to its audiences on an annual basis. In addition, the BBC is expected to consult National Broadcasting Councils about services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and >...give due consideration to the Councils' views and ensure that comments and complaints by viewers of, and listeners to, the licence fee funded services are properly considered'. These Councils are supposed to >keep in touch with public opinion and offer advice to Governors on the extent to which BBC objectives reflect the needs of audiences and the extent to which those objectives are met'. Regional advisory Councils have also been set up, which serve similar functions to those of the Councils.
The National Councils include representation from different representative bodies, and are supposed to ensure that the views of audiences are given due consideration. The Regional Councils are appointed with a view to ensuring a broad representation of the public, and to channel public opinion in relation to BBC representation of these regions. The Board of Governors of the BBC is also expected to ensure that due regard is given to the views of listeners and viewers.
The current Charter was granted in May 1996 for a ten year term after a lengthy process of public consultation and debate (termed the Charter Renewal Process). In fact the Renewal Process took four years, and began when the Secretary of State for National Heritage published >The Future of the BBC: A Consultation Document'. The British Film Institute then produced a series of monographs over a two year period raising issues for debate around the Charter. The Government then released White Paper in 1994, which dealt with the future of the BBC, and only in 1995 was a draft agreement and Charter published.
In terms of clause 3(a) of the Charter, the BBC must ensure that it remains under review, including through seminars and public meetings. Material changes to programming services must be preceded by an >appropriate process of public consultation'.
The BBC also produces extensive editorial and programming guidelines, and breaches of these codes are adjudicated by an internal Programmes Complaints Unit. The Governors' Programmes Complaints Committee considers appeals. A governance and accountability unit is also being established.
From the above, numerous observations can be made:
Firstly, the development of detailed editorial and programming policies is part and parcel of the core business of public broadcasters, but having them approved by their respective Ministers is not. There is nothing to suggest in these >models' that it is a precondition for ensuring accountability: in fact, the independence of the Board to approve these policies, and the editorial staff to implement them, is upheld, but with the proviso that they are held accountable according to these codes. In the process, journalists can exercise their integrity and independence within these policies, that enshrine the best practice of journalistic ethics. So there is no independence without accountability, and no accountability without independence. These two concepts are a package deal in public broadcasting: something that is not recognised in the Broadcasting Amendment Bill.
Hence there are sound arguments for retaining the obligation on the SABC to develop these policies, but not to have the Minister approve them. Arguably, this obligation should apply only to the editorial policies, with the other policies either being included in the licence conditions of the SABC services, or alternatively being approved by ICASA.
The argument that government is the policy maker and that therefore should have the powers of approval of these policies does not stand. It is certainly government's role to make macro policy around the fact that a public broadcaster should exist, what its founding legislation should look like, etc. But editorial policies are on another level of policy-making entirely: one that should be within the purview entirely of the Corporation itself.
Secondly, there are numerous practical accountability instruments evident from the above jurisdictions that are not being considered in terms of the Bill, and it is difficult to understand why as they could be easy and extremely effective ways of increasing transparency and public accessibility, as the Minister called for yesterday. These include the establishment of advisory bodies and councils, required by statute.
In addition, the following recommendations are made:
That by law the Board of the SABC be compelled to hold four quarterly report- back meetings to the public every year and that in addition it releases publicly minutes of all its meetings. The public report-back meetings must be of sufficient format and duration to enable members of the public to comment and make proposals.
Further, however, there will be times when specific groups would like to meet with the SABC Board as a matter of urgency, and such requests must also be accommodated. Therefore, again by law, the SABC Board must be compelled to meet with such groups if the party requesting the meeting can submit 100 signatures in support of its request. This will prevent frivolous groups from approaching the Board, and will further show that there is a concerned body of people behind a request for a meeting.
That the SABC Charter is reviewed by the Portfolio Committee once every five years, through a nation-wide process of public meetings. This process should improve significantly on the current charter, and ensure that it remains in touch with what South Africans really want. The current charter was open for public consultation during the Broadcasting Bill hearings for seventeen working days. Ten of the sixteen clauses were taken virtually verbatim from the BBC Charter: a Charter which in Britain took over four years to develop. When it comes to accountable law making for an accountable institution, this is hardly an ideal situation.
That the SABC be required by law to publish annual statements of intent, which will be included as part of the annual parliamentary review. In this manner, the SABC will be measured against particular objectives.
The Board should also be required to defend the independence and freedom of expression of the SABC proactively, and failure to do so may result in members being removed from office.
Furthermore, the supposed lacuna in the Broadcasting Act that gave rise to cabinet approval of the three top management positions, namely the Chief Executive Officer, the Chief Financing Officer and the Chief Operating Officer, should be clarified to give the Board full powers to appoint. It is entirely inappropriate for cabinet to appoint management positions of a public broadcaster, and is another hallmark of state broadcasting that cannot be allowed to persist.
The fact that clause 6(2) of the old Act is being put back, guaranteeing freedom of expression and independence for the SABC, is a welcome move. However, this independence guarantee needs further elaboration. The financial provisions should not be used to limit the SABC's independence in any way, and the CBC formulation in this respect is a very useful one. In this respect, it is interesting to note that a broadcaster such as the CBC, which is publicly funded has more safeguards against undue government influence under the guise of financial accountability than the SABC does, which is not publicly funded.
In conclusion to this section, it should be noted that the above mentioned jurisdictions have been cited in a vacuum when it comes to editorial and programming codes. Firstly, such high levels of accountability are demanded from these public broadcasters because they are true public broadcasters, especially in relation to their sources of funding. While all of these broadcasters rely on mixed funding, they draw the overwhelming bulk from public sources: the licence fee in the case of the BBC, and Parliamentary grants in the cases of the ABC and the CBC. The link between the non-commercial nature of the broadcasters' programming and their editorial values is an unbreakable one: a link that is made possible by their public funding base.
The SABC's reliance on adspend is at 77%, with licence fee income remaining static at 16%; this means that the SABC is effectively a commercial broadcaster, with accountability to advertisers foremost. To imagine that one can address the accountability question properly without addressing the question of the SABC's funding base is wishful thinking; in fact the Portfolio Committee is attempting to square a circle.
The unpalatable state of PBS radio
In an attempt to relieve the SABC of the obligation to fund the public services, the Broadcasting Act ensured the separation of services into public (PBS) and public commercial services (PCBS). The latter are supposed to cross-subsidise the former, to enable the former a space to grow unhindered by commercial considerations. The amendment Bill gives further details on how this is to be effected, and ensures that arms length commercial trading relationships are to be established in respect of both sets of services. If the Bill is entrenching this separation, then the assumption must be that this cross-subsidisation and self-sufficiency model is working. Is it?
The FXI is in partnership with the National Community Radio Forum to establish a Community Media Policy Research Unit. The Unit has been conducted ongoing research on the SABC, especially the ability of SABC PBS radio to meet its mandate in the light of corporatisation and cross-subsidisation. Below is a summary of some of the findings of the research.
‘Radio is the simplest and easiest medium that can reach everywhere. It helps the grannies, children, and youth to receive information, be educated and entertained. It is cheap. A bigger percentage of the area is rural. A lot of areas are not electrified. But with radio, even those people with no electricity can tune into radio and get the news, education and entertainment’.
These words, said by a senior radio manager within the SABC, captures the importance and accessibility of radio and its ability to reach more people than any another media. Not only is it accessible and its reach wider than any other medium, radio is also cheap and can be used by people from all class backgrounds.
In its definition of public broadcasting the-then IBA noted that there are considerable tensions in the definition. This tension is brought about by the fact that while largely funded by the state public broadcasting should best be defined by the ideal of having its control and being accountable to the broader public and a commitment to a set of service principles. The Authority went on to attempt a broad description of the ‘public’. "The public, served by this form of broadcasting is the totality of all citizens irrespective of sex, race, age, race or culture. The services should bring to the greatest number of homes the fullest possible range of programmes, including minority interests, and should address their needs as citizens primarily, rather than their preferences as customers".
Two important categories are glaringly missing from the above definition, and as this report will later demonstrate, these will prove critical in our assessment of the state of PBS radio and its ability to meet a ‘set of service principles’. These are class and location: whether people live in the urban or rural areas. The interplay of class and location, as shown by the research, also undermines the attempt to ‘bring to the greatest number of homes the fullest possible range of programmes, including minority interests, and (addressing) their needs as citizens primarily, rather than their preference as consumers’. What emerges in this section is how public broadcasting is forced to consider not the needs of listeners as ‘citizens’ but their potential as ‘consumers’ of goods whose producers are emerging as the main funders of broadcasting.
Reflecting on the experiences of public broadcasting in the USA Ledbetter (1997) outlines a major contradiction that PBS has to face. He notes that while ideally not driven by a motive to attract huge audiences PBS must be able to attract a reasonable portion of the population. At the same time, it must resist or surmount commercial pressures that are usually linked to efforts to attract large audiences. This presents what Rowland terms a "contradiction of popularity" (cited in Ledbetter, 1997).
This contradiction of popularity as this section will demonstrate has come to bear on many PBS stations that were studied during the research. Not only are stations concerned with the number of listeners that they are able to attract and their strength measured against these numbers, they are also concerned with the ‘buying power’ (the class background) of the listeners.
With the growing emphasis being put on the need to have stations being able to meet certain revenue targets it was expected that the real essence of PBS and how it must be run would have also changed. Most people who were interviewed had the same understanding of what PBS should be and how it must differ from private broadcasting and even the SABCs public commercial public service (PCBS).
The broad understanding was that PBS must first and foremost serve the public. The following lengthy quotation, from a current affairs producer, reflects the broad understanding of what PBS is all about:
A public broadcaster should look after the interests of the public. It should broadcast the day to day events of the lives. It should tell people about themselves. It also has an obligation of educating, informing and entertaining the public. More than anything it has the obligation of uplifting the lives of the public, their languages and cultures. It must also inform the public about what is happening within government circles. You must not hide anything. But you must also not offend the public with the language that you use.
There was a demonstration of a clear understanding of what PBS radio should be like and what it should not be like. The following summarises the views of the interviewees:
PBS radio must serve a diverse community of South Africans taking into consideration (for regional stations) the uniqueness of language, values and culture. At all times regional stations must serve local audience, reflect their information and education needs, while not forgetting to provide them with national and international perspectives on events.
PBS radio must serve the needs of the listeners without being driven by financial interests. It is different from both PCBS and private stations in that its main aim is not to make money but to inform, educate and entertain without putting more emphasis on making profits, as it is the case with both PCBS and private stations.
Unlike PCBS and private stations, PBS radio must serve all the people without categorising them into target audiences that are usually determined by the Living Standard Measurement (LSM) category of the listeners in order to maximise profits through advertisements. PBS radio must, through its programming, strike a balance by having all age groups and income categories being equally served.
Lastly, PBS radio must unlike private stations broadcast the views of different political persuasions without favouring the one over the other. While expected to inform listeners about what the government does it must do not this by turning into the mouthpiece of government. It must be free and independent of government and also be in a situation to even broadcast unpopular yet very important views.
On the other hand it has been observed that the broadcaster does not always uphold these ideals, that would ordinarily guide the direction that PBS radio pursues. Instead there is evidence that the ideals of public broadcasting are being reversed by the current trends within the broadcaster.
Firstly, PBS stations are being forced to pursue commercial interests. This is due to the fact that while the broad understanding is that these stations should be cross-subsidised by PCBS stations they are also expected to meet certain revenue targets. The logical consequence of this is that the stations find themselves having to reposition their programmes and programme content in such a way that it reflects the needs and interests of the upwardly mobile sections of the society. Thobela FM effected programme changes with this in mind. The station changed its programmes after market research indicated that it would benefit much more if the nature and content of programming was skewed to suit the interests of the urban upwardly mobile listener rather than the rural, illiterate, and poor listeners who happened to be the traditional and loyal listeners of the station. The station sought to attract ‘quality listenership’, meaning those who are viewed by market researchers as having ‘buying power’.
At Umhlobo we Nene FM a programming conference that was held at the end of 2000 decided to categorise listeners into two main categories, Primary 1 and Primary 2. Primary 1 listeners are urban upward moving listeners who fall into the 16 to 38 age category. Primary 2 listeners are mainly rural or non-educated, less mobile listeners who are 39 years and older. The station avoids saying that the Primary 1 listeners are secondary to it. They are considered to be equally important What distinguishes these two categories is that the Primary 1 listeners are seen as a strategic group that is able to attract advertisers and sponsors.
Considerations to generate more revenue have in the case of Umhlobo we Nene FM led to the dropping of an adult programme that was called 12 Down. This was after the station’s commissioned research study indicated that the programme has minimal chances of attracting more revenue.
Another factor that affects the stations repositioning is that it is the only station that broadcasts in all the major metropoles (Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, East London, Bloemfontein, and Pretoria). This has affected the manner in which the station packages itself. There is a slight skew towards a more urban upward listenership, the Primary 1 listeners.
In order to achieve better revenue returns the station sought to target higher LSM categories. As the interviewee in this station put it, "This is where money is. The lower LSM listeners do not bring us business".
In some cases stations do not change programming as such but shrink the time allocated to programmes that are viewed as not attracting advertisements. These are usually programmes that are aimed at the rural and elderly listeners. The trend is to ‘cut’ programmes to about fifteen (15) minutes.
The shift towards being stations that are also concerned with generating revenue has not only raised questions raised questions around the very nature of PBS but also how these stations can still be said to be reaching out to a broader audience and serving that audience equally. The shift also raises the question of the stations’ own identities.
A critical question was posed by one producer on the issue of stations having to meet certain revenue targets. The producer observed that, "If you say that a station must have a revenue target then you are saying it should have a target audience. That simply means the station having to dump a portion of their listeners who are considered not to be strategic in the stations’ to attract advertisers and sponsors. What would be the meaning of public service? Who will be your public? What this means is that the station will have to scale down its public obligation."
However, the dilemma that stations find themselves has to be addressed. Faced with decreasing budget allocation (in real terms) stations find themselves in a position where they are forced to consider aggressive revenue generating plans. One interviewer summed up this dilemma rather well:
We are not in the business of making or not making money. But if we do not make money how are we going to survive? Yet if we compel ourselves to be moneymakers how are we going to serve our people? It is a catch 22 situation. Our financial allocation is not enough to keep the station running, we only have our heads above the water. Hence we are compelled to generate revenue, and in the process of doing that we find ourselves losing our identity.
One presenter argued that most of the programmes in PBS stations are no longer aimed at all people. "Do you think that an old illiterate women in the rural areas understands the language that is spoken in the radio today, and the issues that are discussed?" This presents many stations with a dilemma, what we can call ‘a crisis of identity’.
A quick glance through a number of regional stations’ website, underdeveloped as they are currently, reveals a conscious move towards urbanising these stations. Yet the vast areas that the stations serve are mainly rural. The question that arises is "Who is being served by these stations?" What is even striking is that most of the stations have set themselves on a course to serve an urbanised audience. The most striking example is that of Motsweding FM whose website states, " Motsweding is a full service broadcasting in Setswana with significant entertainment bias geared towards satisfying the needs of the relatively sophisticated urbanised listenership." The wisdom of positioning the station like this needs to be questioned because a larger part of the geographic area over which the station broadcasts is rural. Only a small percentage of the area is urban.
What emerged out of this trend is that stations are not only trying top target higher LSM listeners but they also find themselves developing a crisis of their ‘presenting style’. The Motsweding focus group admitted that they see their station as competing against Metro FM. In practical terms this means that the station sheds all that is unique about the language and culture of those it was initially aimed at targeting as a an audience. One presenter pointed out that a particularly popular programme, Moribo wa Africa (The Rhythm of Africa), judging by its popularity, deserves more at least two hours of airtime. Yet the programme cannot be allocated more than an hour of airtime purely because it does not attract adequate advertising revenue. Some few years ago the presenter of the programme was changed, only to be brought back because of public pressure.
Another example of how programmes that are important for identity formation of listeners being sacrificed because of pressures of making revenue is the African traditional religious programme at Thobela FM. The programme has had to be ‘cut’ down to fifteen minutes because not adequate revenue can be made by the station through the programme.
The debate around the stations positioning themselves as a result of pressure, whether direct or indirect, real or imagined, from advertisers, is not as simple as it is usually made to sound. There is a strong argument for stations to also make themselves relevant to younger listeners. One interviewee argued: " In our effort to produce meaningful programming we must also make money. But perhaps more importantly we must not forget our younger audiences. If PBS is to be relevant we must also be able to attract a young audience. Therefore we cannot to broadcast as if we are still in the 1950s and 60s. We must be young and vibrant."
Considered in isolation of other factors this view would sound convincing and an inevitable route that the stations have to take. However, it is difficult not to see this view as euphemism for suggesting that stations have to attract younger audiences who have the ‘buying power’ that the market needs before investing in radio.
While there is evidence of a trend to reposition stations in order to meet revenue targets by many stations, Ukhozi FM stands out as a station that is trying to meet the needs of its diverse audience. A presenter at the station had these strong words to say against attempts to change the target audiences of stations to suit the needs of the advertisers, "We target all people. We target anyone who can earn a salary. We have more people in the rural areas. We do not want to move towards the direction of serving mainly the middle class. We do not want to be anglicised." It must of course be pointed out that while holding to these strong and radical views this producer falls into the very trap that she is saying her station does not want to fall into, that the station caters for anyone earning a salary. This statement is questionable in the light of the high unemployment rate, particularly in the rural areas, where the the bulk of the station’s listenership resides.
Some within the station attribute this to strong management that is able to not only stand for the station against ‘hostile outside influence but can also articulate the needs of the station to the broadcaster’s hierarchy’. The station caters for ‘an extensive audience’. A number of the interviewees attested to the fact that there is a conscious attempt on the side of the management not to make the station lose its loyal rural support base.
The main reason why the station has so far managed to withstand the pressures of programme change can be that it remains the biggest station in the Southern hemisphere, with 4,6 million listeners. It also remains the biggest black station in terms of advertising revenue. Still the station has not managed to escape the influence of meeting revenue targets altogether, or better still, the shifts that are taking place within the corporation. The station can therefore, even though it has shown signs of being able to pursue a somewhat different direction, not be seen in isolation of the broader influences, changes, and repositioning strategies that are taking place within the corporation. It is again influenced by other outside currents that are taking place in the broader social and political spheres.
Apart from these largely disturbing trends, there are also disturbing trends emerging with respect to listenership. In spite of a long-term growth in SABC radio listenership, there is now evidence of a decline, which underscores the necessity of evaluating the quality of the service on offer. >From July 1999 to June 2000, listenership of SABC African Language Stations was at 67,3%. From January 2000 to December 2000, this figure dropped to 67,0%, and from July 2000 to June 2001, it had dropped further to 65,8%.
In 2001, the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) was unable to come up with an explanation as to why the figures are dropping. According to SAARF:
‘One of the many possible reasons for the slightly lower levels seen for those stations with large rural components could be as a result of this change in methodology, and should thus not necessarily be taken as a real change. However, the fact that the diary methodology for radio listening and TV viewing is the same, and television viewing has not been affected at all, may indicate that there could be other explanations for the observed changes in listening levels, demonstrating the difficulty of understanding these observations’.
This downward trend has continued into 2002, with listenership dropping especially amongst women, rural and elderly listeners, and in those areas where very little radio competion exists, if any: so it cannot be surmised that listeners are migrating to other services because their needs are not been met.
The politics of cross-subsidisation
Much has been said about the affordeability of the SABC's public mandate, especially its language mandate. As mentioned there is no evidence that cross-subsidisation is making the necessary resources available even to existing services such as PBS radio, with all the negative consequences for programming and listeners. Therefore in principle the fact that the government is willing to make resources available for the establishment of regional television must be welcomed as a major step forward, and is a commitment that must be built on in spite of the fact that it flies in the face of persistent government arguments that it cannot afford to divert funds from the fiscus to fund public broadcasting: hence the Broadcasting Act. In fact the decision to found these stations is in itself an acknowledgement of the unworkeability of the Broadcasting Act, and notably the cross-subsidisation arrangement.
The fact that the Broadcasting Amendment Bill contains an item enjoins the SABC to organise its finances >..in order to determine the true income of and expenditure incurred by the Corporation in rendering a public broadcasting service and the commercial broadcasting service....', implies that the true cost of rendering this service is not known. If the extent of the affordability or otherwise of the mandate is not known, then on what basis was Broadcasting Act promulgated? It is clear that the mandate is not affordable.
However, the mandate stands to become even less affordable as the internal logic of the Broadcasting Act and the Amendment Bill unfolds. Increasing liberalisation of broadcasting, including the pending licencing of secondary towns, will place the SABC's access to adspend under even more pressure, which will force it to invest even more heavily than is the case in non-programming functions like sales and marketing.
The reference in s.19 of the Bill to Board having to comply with the requirements of the Public Finance Management Act >...whilst the state is the sole shareholder in the Corporation' is very telling, as it confirms the intention as per the White Paper on Broadcasting to privatise parts of the SABC. Pressures to privatise are becoming more intense as commercial broadcasters agitate for a competitive playing field: a conflict that is taking place in every country where public broadcasters enjoy mixed funding, but which is all the more intense in South Africa given the SABC's funding base. Corporatisation is propelling the SABC commercial services towards privatisation, yet it is precisely these services that are supposed to cross-subsidise the public services. While there have been slights improvements in licence fee collection, payment is not nearly at the levels where one can describe it as a significant source of revenue. The licence fee is a regressive form of taxation, which makes it especially unsuited to a country such as South Africa with its huge income inequalities and rising unemployment. Long term convergence trends evident in other countries coupled with the opening up of the subscription market will further erode the philosophical basis for the licence fee. The pending digitisation of broadcasting, and the pressures to encourage digital free to air takeup are also weighing heavily on the SABC. Hence the arrangements put in place in the Broadcasting Act, and intensified through the Bill, are bound to pull themselves apart by virtue of their own internal logic. We need to decide whether we want to tinker with the details of both, or address the fundamentals. We believe that addressing the fundamentals is the only path to achieving he objectives that this hearing has set itself, namely to promote language equity and multilingualism. The current arrangements trump both.
This is not to say that the SABC could not do much to realign internal spending. Misguided and expensive mistakes such as SABC news's bi-media operation, which was imported in a suitcase by McKinsey consulting from other public broadcasters where it failed, such as the BBC, does nothing to save money. The necessary warnings about the wisdom of going this route were made in 1999 and duly ignored by the previous Board. Also, according to the SABC's own annual reports, in 1989 when the SABC was still a state broadcaster, it spent 66% of its budget on programming. Now, in spite of a changed mandate and democratic dispensation, it spends only 42% of its budget on programming AND broadcasting: a difference of 24%! How can this be? Over the same period, a category of expense called >other' has increased. We have asked the SABC for an explanation of what constitutes >other', and have not received one. Also, according to employment figures in the FXI's possession, the management to staff ratio in the SABC was one: five. In 2000, it increased to one: three.
Much more investigation and explanation needs to go into the SABC's internal spending priorities, and to the extent that the Bill seeks to make the SABC more transparent on this level, it is an important advance. If these superficial statistics are anything to go by, it should suprise no-one that the SABC is failing to deliver on its language mandate. However, the problem is not only that of the SABC's: it is now that of the Broadcasting Act, and by extension, the Bill.
The Bill deepens the logic of separating services by establishing arms length commercial relationships between PBS and PCBS. This move will probably beurocratise the SABC even further through the formalisation of internal market. This is taking place at a time when the internal market system is being dismantled in the very public services where it was pioneered by Margaret Thatcher in Britain, because it creates outlandish levels of beurocracy. At its height, it resulted in over a million internal trading transactions taking place in the BBC per year. The separation may well force the SABC to invest in armies of contract consultants, lawyers, administrators, and financial managers: managers managing managers. This means even less money for programming and the language mandate. It is also unclear where news, education and sport will fall: if they are to operate on a client contractor basis to the two arms, then accounting and administrative implications can only be guessed. Put crudely, the Bill has extremely noble intentions around language, that are crucial to realising the rights to freedom of expression and access to information, yet in respect of these intentions, it gives with the one hand and takes with the other.