Editors Comments

Reliving last year's World Cup – now

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:40

In a case of bizarre timing, right in the middle of the IRB Rugby World Cup we can now read, in great detail, how great the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup was. Several pages of the SABC’s annual report for the financial year 2010-11, presented to parliament on Monday, wax lyrical about its 2010 World Cup coverage.

Granted the SABC broadcast all 64 games live, took the games to the masses at various fan parks around the country, generated huge viewership and did player interviews and behind the scenes footage, but all the match coverage itself was produced by FIFA’s host broadcaster (Host Broadcast Services), which produced the live feeds ready for transmission.

No mention in the annual report is made of the controversy surrounding the SABC’s flash (and immensely vast) 2010 World Cup studio, constructed inside what must be one of the most expensive venues in Johannesburg, the Sandton Convention Centre. Why a broadcaster in financial crisis should have chosen to do this when it had perfectly serviceable studios in its own Henley TV facility is highly questionable. And how did the SABC’s 2010 project office pay the rent for the SCC venue? By giving away R13.9m of free advertising over the period of a year to the SCC.

But that was then and this is now. And now, if you read the first paragraph of the annual report it talks about the SABC’s challenges of the past year and cites the reasons as the global recession, ad spend being at an all-time low and a significantly diminished audience share. There is no mention of the financial mismanagement, corruption and in-fighting among senior management and board members that have been making headline news for the past year - all the real reasons why the broadcaster was forced into what is termed in the report as its ‘austerity period’. It mentions the R1.473bn bail-out granted by Treasury in November 2010 but not why the SABC had to ask for these funds. The report punts the Turnaround Strategy but doesn’t give the real reason why it’s needed, opting to say again that the SABC is operating in a difficult broadcasting environment. The fact that the report says SABC puts audiences at the centre of its organisation might come as a surprise to viewers who are fed a pretty constant diet of repeats and sponsored programmes.

It comes as no surprise that the Auditor-General gave the SABC a qualified audit (see Stop Press story below). However on the upside, according to the annual report, advertising revenues had a 19% increase year-on-year.

More than once in the report, the SABC is described as ‘a going concern’. Well, if hiccupping along can be described as ‘going’, then fine. The question is – where is it going?

Joanna Sterkowicz

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