Editors Comments

The newbie and the time-shifting

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:34

Two big occurrences in the South African industry this week – the announcement of a new CEO for the National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) and the publishing of the Amendment to the Digital Migration Policy of 2008 by Minister of Communications Dina Pule.

As Screen Africa readers may recall, soon after the last NFVF CEO Eddie Mbalo (who has suddenly popped up as the interim CEO of satellite subscription service TopTV) completed his 10-year tenure at the NFVF in March 2011, the NFVFs chief financial officer Karen Son was appointed CEO. This was thought to be a good move as Son's many years with the NFVF saw her au fait with the intricacies of the film and TV industry. Yet surprisingly, a few weeks later Son was un-appointed CEO and appointed acting CEO until a new one was found. This seemed, to this onlooker at any rate, an inexplicable and unfair decision.

Late yesterday afternoon came an NFVF press release announcing that Zamantungwa (Zama) Mkosi has been appointed CEO. As you can read in the Breaking News story below, Mkosi has an impressive CV with a five-year stint at the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) as the senior legal advisor to the Media & Motion Pictures Division. She was also an executive producer on the award-winning TV series, Heartlines.

Screen Africa wishes Mkosi well in her position as head of the country's all-important statutory film and TV developmental body. But one can't help wondering why it took so long for the NFVF council, which reports to the Department of Arts and Culture, to appoint a new CEO.

And now onto the Digital Migration Policy Amendment (see Breaking News story below) – while this is a positive move forward of South Africa's seemingly endless run-up to the migration from analogue broadcasting to digital terrestrial television (DTT), the Amendment appears to give two different timelines for the launch of DTT. At the beginning of the document it says the launch will happen in the fourth quarter of 2012 and later it says that government will endeavour to switch on the digital signal before the end of the 2012 / 2013 financial year (ie. February next year). And, as reported in the February issue of the Screen Africa print magazine, only a few weeks ago the Minister was heard to say (at a press conference in Pretoria) that the launch would likely be in the third quarter of 2012. Never mind, let's hope DTT is launched by the latest above date at the very least.

An interesting acronym appears in the list of acronyms at the top of the Amendment – DCGHS - which stands for Digital Content Generation Hubs. This term is not mentioned anywhere else in the document. I've requested clarification from the Department of Communications on exactly what these hubs are and whether they will be external to the broadcasters.

The set top box (STB) required to decode the DTT signal will also include access to e-government services and parliamentary information. All well and good as long as it isn't used for insidious propaganda.

Joanna Sterkowicz

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