Twenty-one percent of broadcasting time on South African public broadcaster SABC is filled with repeats of recently aired programmes and the SABC struggles to meet local content requirements according to a Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) report released during a seminar on public broadcasting held at Wits University on 30 August.
MMA conducted the study, written by Lethabo Thebe Dibetso and Thandi Smith, by monitoring SABC programming and certain SABC news bulletins between 1 April and 15 May 2012.
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Wits, Professor Tawana Kupe, served as keynote speaker at the seminar. He noted that if an alien visiting South Africa from Mars only watched local television and didn’t interact with any South Africans, it would think that the country’s inhabitants are mostly white and speak English. “Media ideally ought to represent and reflect social diversity as part of its democratic and democratisation role,’ said Kupe.
He emphasised the importance of differentiating between pluralism and diversity. “Pluralism means many but not different, while diversity means many and different,’ he explained. “We need diversity of and in media structures, including media ownership, media producers / workers and media content.’
According to the MMA report repeats take up 28% of broadcasting time on SABC1, 21% on SABC2 and 15% on SABC3. This does not include rebroadcasts of old series such as MacGyver.
Report co-author Thandi Smith explained that 64% of programmes on SABC channels are produced in South Africa, but noted that SABC1 and SABC2 are only just meeting local content quotas, while SABC3 is just missing it. “When you exclude repeats, news bulletins and sport, the local content quotas are much, much lower and don’t meet local content requirements.’
“English is also still the majority language on SABC channels, while white people are over-represented,’ said Smiths. The report noted, however, that his is not a problem exclusive to the public broadcaster, but seen across media in South Africa.
The study also found that news on SABC is characterised by event-based reporting, with political parties being the most accessed sources, while marginalised people and the issues that affect them are under-represented. “Spokespersons are setting the agenda, and it is still a man’s world dominated by male voices and urban issues,’ said Smith.
Kupe explained that diversity has many elements to it. “It’s not just about broadcasting in many languages, but also about the content – what is being said in that language?’
He added that public funding is necessary, but not a sufficient condition for diversity. “I am also not optimistic that a new digital channel environment will sort this lack of diversity out,’ he said.
To download the report, visit:mediamonitoring report
