Editors Comments

In Her Shoes

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:13

Who would want to be in the designer footware of Lulama Mokhobo? She must be one mighty brave woman to agree to take over the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), probably the most troubled broadcaster in history. Imagine trying to sort out a financial, administrative and managerial fracas of about seven years standing, not to mention having to grapple with the SACB board (itself a fractious entity given all the resignations of board members and the controversy surrounding the board chairperson) as well as government’s traditional and relentless interference in the public broadcaster’s affairs.

Mokhobo’s decision to accept the GCEO post is surprising considering she resigned from the SABC in July 2010, months before her then contract as head of Public Broadcasting Services ended. She chose not to stay the course then, will she choose to stay the five-year course this time?

A big point in Mokhobo’s favour is her experience of the SABC and the industry itself as she was a former CEO of production company Urban Brew. She is also a former chairperson of the Independent Producers Organisation (IPO). So hopefully Mokhobo will acknowledge the perspective of the independent production sector which has been decimated by the SABC crisis and act to rectify matters in the commissioning department as soon as possible.

Moving on to another broadcaster, namely satellite pay-TV service TopTV and its plans to launch a standalone bouquet of three porn-I-mean-adult-content channels. This suggests that TopTV is desperately trying to drum up business. But going the porn-I-mean-adult-content route seems (to me at least) a sleazy option, especially for a broadcaster that was always positioned as a general entertainment offering.

Whether the porn-I-mean-adult-content bouquet will receive the necessary go-ahead from the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) at the end of January is another question. Should ICASA concede then TopTV may indeed gain new subscribers for the Adult Pack but they may lose some of the existing subscribers who object on moral grounds. And, how many Adult Pack subscribers are likely, when porn-I-mean-adult-content is freely available on the Internet and available for purchase at sex shops all over the place? And can you imagine watching that stuff 24 hours a day!

Yesterday TopTV released what I can only describe as a thesis on the Adult Pack, almost positioning porn-I-mean-adult-content as an anti-rape or anti-sex crimes device. The statement includes research that apparently shows that once porn-I-mean-adult-content is more freely available then rape statistics don’t increase but in some cases actually decrease. I find that difficult to believe - I would have thought the opposite was true. But I bow to superior knowledge on the subject.

The issue has sparked much media coverage and public debate. On its home page News24 has been running a “Do you think that pornography is harmless as TopTV claims?” poll. As at 9am on 18 January, 18,560 people had voted – 55% answered “No” and 45% answered “Yes”.

These latest TopTV developments are reminiscent of when MultiChoice researched the viability of launching a porn-I-mean-adult-content offering on its DStv bouquet in early 2010. Those plans were shelved because of the public outcry.

Joanna Sterkowicz

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