Solving SABC's identity crisis will fix problem

Frankly, someone needs to start taking control and shut down this three-ringed circus. Then start working on a plan with urgency to try and rescue what's left of the SABC before its competitors completely rip TV and radio audiences away.

No interim board

A good place to start will certainly be a new board, preferably not interim, because interim board haves the habit of only managing to maintain the status quo, which is something no-one wants right now. The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications that is charged with selecting suitable candidates - which the National Assembly and eventually the president tend to rubber stamp - should concentrate on skills for this next board.

Management skills for starters. And, most importantly, board members who understand the world of media and the technicalities of radio and television, especially the importance of content selection and marketing in terms of audience targeting. And especially someone who understands cost control.

Track records

Board members should be selected according to their track record for getting things done and not for bolstering their CVs or tucking into fresh percolated coffee and freshly baked muffins.

But, at the same time, priority needs to be given to solving the SABC's severe identity crisis from which it has been suffering for decades.

On one hand, we have heard a succession of CEOs insist that they will run the SABC like a business, only to find out that its very mandate prevents it from becoming anything like a business.

The SABC can either be a national public broadcaster or a business. It cannot be both without running into heavy losses every time there is a downturn in the economy. Particularly in future when TV cash-cows such as the 30-second commercial start losing favour. Something that is already happening in many world TV markets.

Unsustainable

To be run as a successful business, Parliament needs to look at what the SABC's current mandate is demanding and to eliminate those elements that are making it unsustainable in of pure business modelling.

Alternatively, the SABC needs to be seen as a pure public broadcaster, political baggage and all, and be provided with sufficient funding for at least certain of its TV and radio stations to relieve them of a dependence on advertising and sponsorship revenue.

Now this seems to be the way the new Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda is heading. Yesterday he said the Broadcasting Act would be amended to introduce an appropriate funding model for the SABC “to ensure that the public broadcaster is not left to the vagaries of the markets.”

Whether this means turning some of SABC's TV and radio stations into advertising free public broadcasting units funded by the taxpayer, or whether it meant establishing a top up fund for tough times, isn't yet known. His task team of communications and treasury officials will let us know in due course.

Welcome initiative

His initiative should be welcomed, though, because at least it involves looking at the long term financial sustainability of the SABC.

The present SABC never had a chance. It was an Mbeki board that lost its political backing the day after Polokwane. It lost what clout it should have had and ended up fighting with management instead of guiding and directing it.

The soap opera must end. This country cannot afford the luxury anymore of puerile finger point and points-scoring. The taxpayer has put up with more than enough of this squandering.