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SABC TV is a lot older than 30 years
5 Jun 2006
A few newspaper and magazine columnists have mentioned in passing that SABC TV celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, but generally this historical event seems to be passing by largely unnoticed. Interestingly enough though, while SABC TV did switch on 30 years ago, SABC actually got involved in the TV news business as long as 42 years ago.
It was in early June 1964 that the head of United Press International Newsfilm Television in South Africa was summoned by the then SABC director general and asked if he would train a soon-to-be-formed SABC TV news crew.
At that stage, news agency UPI supplied SABC radio with a newswire service and in fact in those days many of the news bulletins were written by UPI and not SABC staff. Ironic that at the height of apartheid, SABC news was being produced by the Americans.
Instrument of the devil
Getting back to that momentous day in 1964, when asked if the training of a TV news crew meant that South Africa would soon be getting TV, the director general responded quite openly and adamantly that as the Government still considered television to the be an "instrument of the devil", there was absolutely no chance of a TV service starting up in this country.
The reason SABC wanted to get involved was purely and simply financial on one hand - there were a lot of TV news freelancers wandering around South Africa shooting footage for the then almost 400 television stations worldwide.
On the other, Government clearly wanted to try and control at least some of the TV news content leaving the country.
Robert Kennedy
One of the first assignments this fledgling SABC TV news crew had was to cover the visit to South Africa by US Senator Robert Kennedy and his wife, Ethel.
The idea was that the crew should follow Kennedy from Johannesburg to Cape Town, Durban and back to Johannesburg again.
Unfortunately, while they had become technically adept at using the 100kg Auricon camera and sound gear, they hadn't had any experience at just how much stamina it takes to follow a four-day cross country story and bailed out of things after the first day.
12 years later
This unit formed what was twelve years later to become the SABC TV News department.
In those early days those first SABC TV news crews found it extremely difficult to be objective about what they were covering and more than just tended to slant things the way they assumed their political master would wish.
Frankly, I don't think much has changed.
About Chris Moerdyk
Apart from being a corporate marketing analyst, advisor and media commentator, Chris Moerdyk is a former chairman of Bizcommunity. He was head of strategic planning and public affairs for BMW South Africa and spent 16 years in the creative and client service departments of ad agencies, ending up as resident director of Lindsay Smithers-FCB in KwaZulu-Natal. Email Chris on moc.liamg@ckydreom and follow him on Twitter at @chrismoerdyk.
