Kate Skinner of the SOS: Support Public Broadcasting Campaign reports that last week the board of troubled public broadcaster SABC (South African Broadcasting Corporation) presented an upbeat strategic plan to the parliamentary portfolio committee on communications.
“The SABC board played a video that highlighted their successes, particularly over last year’s FIFA World Cup,’ says Skinner. “They argued that they had implemented the first phase of their turnaround strategy – the stabilisation of the corporation. Because a number of cost cutting measures had been put in place the SABC will now be able to pay back its Nedbank loan ahead of schedule.
“Programming has been prioritised and a new book of fully funded RFPs (Request for Proposals) is to be issued. The board stated that the SABC’s relationship with the independent producers was good. They also said that key to their prioritisation of programming was the new 24 hour news channel. The channel will initially be broadcast on DStv and later on the SABC’s new digital channels, following the country’s digital migration. It will cost R80m a year to run. The SABC board expressed the need for funding capital costs linked to digital migration and believes this funding should come from government.’
According to Skinner, the board also focused on staffing issues and stressed that the SASBC had a good relationship with unions. “They did say that the head count at the SABC needs to be looked at and as part of that they were considering the retraining of staff and the attrition of posts.’
