The SOS Coalition is dismayed by the unabated financial mismanagement at the SABC that has now been revealed in various media reports.
The Corporation's dire financial situation has sparked legitimate fears across the television industry of a repeat of the SABC’s 2008/09 financial meltdown, which saw many companies close and numerous jobs lost.
In 2009, the SABC was given a government guarantee to deal with a serious cash-flow crisis that had resulted from huge financial losses to the tune of R1bn in the 2008/2009 financial year.
The then Auditor General called for sound leadership and strong financial systems going forward. The government guarantee also stipulated a number of targets that the SABC must meet in terms of increased revenue and reduction of expenses - however not all these targets were met.
In this past week, independent producers woke up to news that they would not be paid and that the broadcaster has less the R100 million left in its coffers.
Meanwhile revelations from a meeting between the SABC and Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) also revealed that the 22 most senior executives at the SABC earn R43 million a year, fifteen of whom earn more than R2 million a year while the broadcaster faces a serious financial crisis.
THE 90% LOCAL MODEL
The now infamous 90% local content decree has seemingly contributed to the financial crisis at the SABC in a way that extends far beyond the problems now confronting Independent producers.
The SABC’s failure to meet its contractual obligations not only places the industry in crisis but also puts thousands of livelihoods at risk in a time of high unemployment.
The SOS Coalition has campaigned for the SABC to increase local content quotas in past years to support the growth of our local creative industries, but this must be done in a reasonable and strategic fashion so as not to threaten the market share and financial viability of the Corporation.
The irresponsible and attention-seeking manner in which these programming changes have been implemented have contributed to the ongoing crisis at the SABC and demonstrate a dangerous tendency to take populist decisions without thorough risk analysis.
FUNDING MODEL
The SABC’s primary source of income is adverts flighted on TV. The SABC's funding model (80% advertising; 18% licence fees; 2% government) is a model that the SOS Coalition has flagged as an area of concern for many years.
Today the SABC sits at R150 million rand in debt to advertisers following the unplanned programming changes which resulted in un-flighted advertisements.
Former CEO Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s promises to increase royalty payments to local musicians have also not been implemented.
The irresponsible and self-aggrandizing manner in which the 90% local content quota was driven contributed to the ongoing crisis at the SABC. It demonstrates a lack of respect for corporate governance and populist business practices designed solely to increase the popularity of certain SABC executives.
This has in turn compromised the broadcaster by diminishing its audience share and hurting its commercial revenue.
The worst part of the 90% model is that the very people who were meant to benefit from increasing local content, the creatives, artists and local producers, are now sitting with less than what they started with.
We note the failure of the previous Minister of Communications, Faith Muthambi, to preserve the SABC as a site of excellence in public broadcasting and her attempts to subvert the independence of the broadcaster from political interference.
We stand with independent producers, journalists and media workers who form the backbone of our media industry and who play a critical role in ensuring our public broadcaster delivers quality, diverse, citizen- orientated programming in the public interest.
We call on the new Minister, Ayanda Dlodlo, and the new Interim Board to work with Parliament and the SABC to ensure the following:
- Prioritising the SABC’s immediate financial crisis to ensure the payment of SABC staff salaries and the payment of independent producers.
- Meet with independent producers, as soon as possible, to work out a joint way forward to ensure payments are made.
- Meet with National Treasury to work out what is possible in terms of immediate support and assistance.
- In the more medium term, SOS calls on the interim Board to investigate corruption and fruitless and wasteful expenditure at the SABC and to prosecute those involved and to put new financial systems in place to ensure that this does not happen again in the future.
- Also, in the more medium term calls on the Minister and Board to investigate a new funding model for the SABC that includes higher percentages of public funds but also simultaneously tight accountability mechanisms.
*The SOS Coalition represents a broad spectrum of civil society stakeholders committed to the broadcasting of quality, diverse, citizen-orientated public-interest programming aligned to the goals of the South African Constitution.
The Coalition includes a number of trade union federations including COSATU and FEDUSA, a number of independent unions including BEMAWU and MWASA; independent film and TV production sector organisations including the South African Screen Federation (SASFED); a host of NGOs and CBOs including the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), SECTION27 and a number of academics and freedom of expression activists.