TVIEC to meet communications minister

While the nation's attention is focused on the mud slinging and blame shifting that has been unfolding in parliament between the SABC's dissolving board and senior management, the harsh reality is that production companies are continuing to haemorrhage as we lay off staff due to the ongoing non-payment by the public broadcaster.

The organisation says that when it meets the minister today, it will provide him with insight into the realities on the ground facing the television industry. The statement says the TVIEC will “also be addressing the false information supplied by the SABC and the dangers that such misinformation poses to the thousands of jobs that make up the production sector”.

“On June 4 2009 the TVIEC, which makes all local TV content for the SABC (except for the news and sport), marched to SABC headquarters to highlight a crisis of national importance. This march was prompted by the simple fact that the SABC owes us (independent producers, actors, writers, directors, technical crew) millions of rands for work already done or in production. We were met with platitudes from the senior executive about working together through the crisis and promises of weekly meetings to resolve the crisis.

“Our industry is still owed millions of rands and, a month on, there is little or no communication at all from SABC's senior management.”

No accountability

The TVIEC statement says that in the midst of this long-running crisis, not a single board member or executive has accepted accountability for this mess.

“Instead they play a blame game. They gave themselves fat bonuses and continue to take home large monthly pay cheques. Worst of all, individuals on the board and the executive continue to lobby for positions. They have misread the mood of the country and have ignored President's Zuma's call for accountability of public servants. The present SABC cannot be trusted to save itself. We are calling for urgent action by the imminent interim board to lance the rot.”

The TVIEC says it is heartened by the announcement of the Minister setting up a Ministerial Task Team and believes the failings of our public broadcaster are endemic and require fundamental review and correction. It also says it plans to make representations to the team.

SABC ‘lying'

In its response to what it views as SABC “misinformation” the TVIEC says in its statement that the SABC claim that the crisis is a result of the global recession and lower ad-spend is “a dangerous lie” intended to mislead the public and the government.

“Anyone analysing the SABC's annual financial reports (which have clearly been designed to make that task difficult) will quickly see that most of the SABC's loss of revenue is entirely self-inflicted. The national broadcaster lost substantial sports sponsorships partly because it lost lucrative sports rights, but allegations also point to a turf war between its internal sports department and its sales department. The result of this mismanagement of sports revenue is a larger contributing factor than the economic recession,” says the TVIEC statement.

The organisation says that reckless spending, mismanagement of advertising rates and relationships, plus mismanagement of revenue collections are among the main causes of the crisis, and not the global recession. The TVIEC points out that other broadcasters are not facing the same crisis.

Reckless spending

As an example of reckless spending, the TVIEC claims that SABC, eTV and DSTV all source foreign TV programmes from an annual four-day jamboree in Hollywood, USA, but whereas DSTV sends three or four of its managers there to source content for 21 channels, the SABC sends more than 20 people there to source less than 30% of its content for three channels.

“Shockingly, even board members have attended this market over the last five years,” says the TVIEC in its statement.

Other substantially mismanaged cost drivers, says the organisation, include news and an increase in management staff. It claims that while the cost of news has increased, quantity and quality have not.

“Many costs can be attributed to vanity projects which deliver neither value for money nor adherence to license conditions. The SABC arrogantly walked away from its news offering on the DSTV platform to viewers across the continent for which it was paid R20-million per annum. Instead, it chose to create an expensive (reportedly more than R200-million per annum) 24-hour news service on the Vivid platform that has few, if any, viewers,” says the TVIEC statement.

A multitude of managers

The TVIEC points to an explosion in the number of appointments to managerial positions as yet another waste of money at the SABC: “Just five years ago, some 25 commissioning editors commissioned content for three channels. Now more than 100 people populate the Content Hub, with no equivalent increase in workload. This increased layer of the ‘muddled middle' has caused major organizational confusion between content procurement and channel transmission. The SABC's international acquisitions arm has acquired more than R75-million worth of content that the channels cannot use. It has also mismanaged its programme stock, resulting in wasteful write-offs. At the SABC, no manager gets fired for poor performance. They merely get redeployed and replaced with another person. This is how the headcount has increased across the board.

The TVIEC says SABC claims of solving the crisis by producing content in-house are a myth.

“The truth is that presently less than 40% of the content budget is spent on “outside” production - ironically on its most-watched genres. The SABC produces its news and sports “in house” at substantially higher costs per minute than it spends on independently produced content. While the SABC has some respected producers, journalists and crew, any production of its popular genres in-house will be a disaster because of its poor management capabilities.”

TVIEC recommendations

The TVIEC says that what is needed is real change, not empty promises, and says that the SABC's present leadership has made some “monumental blunders” over the past five years.

It lost local soccer, and could lose even more programmes. There are more technical errors in transmission. Programmes do not run on time, and the schedule is frequently changed.

“This is not merely a financial crisis. This is mismanagement at its worst” says the TVIEC, adding that public institutions must be well run, responsive to society's needs and financially self-sufficient, and says the SABC crisis must be fixed now.

The TVIEC recommends:

• Appoint a new legally constituted board
  
• Appoint new executive leadership
  
• Make a public commitment to immediately pay outstanding debts
  
• Conduct an inquiry/audit into the present crisis.

The TVIEC says that the public needs to know what the leadership has spent the money on - including a report of the expense accounts of the top leaders. A culture of accountability will go a long way to prevent future abuse of the SABC.

In the longer term, the TVIEC, which says it is not fighting against the SABC, but for it, says the following should happen:

• Review and modernise commissioning and terms of trade
  
• Place intellectual property in the hands of its creators.
  
• Conduct an ICASA-led review of compliance to regulations
  
• Revive the spirit of public service broadcasting.

For further information email .

For more:

• : New SABC board proposed… On Thursday 2 July 2009, Parliament's portfolio committee on communications has proposed a five-member interim board for the SABC.