SABC will sorely miss Jakins

Frankly, we'll probably never get the full story from Jakins either. Certainly, he has done an outstanding job heading up SABC's airtime sales and latterly all of the corporation's commercial enterprises.

It's a tough job having to bring in more than R2 billion in ad and sponsorship revenue every year and one could probably understand Jakins wanting to quit a few years ago when national adspend was stuck in the doldrums and SABC's increasing budgets had to be satisfied out of what was effectively a shrinking advertising pie.

Targets met

But, the past year or so has shown an enormous increase in corporate advertising spend and certainly his job must have become a lot easier. In fact right now, SABC targets for the year must surely be safe as houses, so battling to make target or to persuade people to advertise on TV can't be the reason for his departure.

Of course SABC has always been a tough company to work for. While it has made enormous strides to become commercially inclined in its culture and systems, it nevertheless is an organization still brimful of political intrigue and controversy.

And while one might think that being a white fellow holding down such a big job in what is essentially still a Government organisation might be the problem, I somehow have my doubts that this has anything to do with his leaving. Jakins and his bosses always seemed to manage to rise above the race issue although when it comes to the inner workings of the SABC and those that influence it, one simply never knows why staffers jump or get pushed.

But, one thing is for sure, newspapers will certainly have a field day with this one finding all sorts of 'skande' behind his departure. Because that's the nature of newspapers today - they're insanely jealous of the fact that SABC takes so much advertising revenue from them they can't ever miss up on an opportunity to stir.

Big clue

Frankly we'll never really know, but there will be an enormous clue in terms of what job Jakins takes on next. So far he hasn't said what he is going to do. But, I rather hope that unless Jakins makes a big deal of it, others won't create huge fires out of what seems to be minimal smoke.

Because Jakins doesn't deserve it. He has done an outstanding job, bringing home the bacon and in his dealings with the media where he has been open and honest. His successor, Gab Mampone, has a huge job on his hands and some very big shoes to fill. Like Jakins, he is a nice guy and well liked in the industry. But only time will tell whether he is tough enough for the challenge.