Association to advance community TV's interests

Its roles will include advocacy and lobbying, programme syndication, content exchange, maximising commercial opportunities, training and capacity building.

It includes all existing community television licensees in South Africa - Soweto TV, Cape Town TV (CTV), Bay TV, One KZN, Tshwane TV, North West TV and Bara TV with an estimated collective audience of six million viewers.

The stations have signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which commits them to a process of formalising and registering Act-SA as a legal entity. An interim steering committee has been elected, with Motse Mfuleni (Bay TV) as chairperson, Karen Thorne (CTV) as deputy chairperson and Colin Mackenzie (Tshwane TV) as general secretary.

"Act-SA will make an important contribution to building media diversity and development in South Africa. The community television sector now has a body that provides support and guidance for community TV stations and is able to address issues with one voice representing all the stakeholders in the sector," says Mfuleni.

Collective power

An organisation of this nature has been under discussion among the channels since 2011, but it has now been formed in response to the common challenges faced by community TV stations. One of these is recent policy recommendations by the Department of Communications (DoC), which has proposed regionalising community television to broadcast at provincial level. The DoC has also pushed for the boards of community television stations to be appointed by government, a move to which Act-SA is opposed.

"The establishment of the association will enable the sector to firmly establish the community television sector as a major emerging player in the South African broadcasting environment including the Digital Terrestrial Television. Community television represents a bottom-up, people-centred approach to broadcasting and it fills a critical gap in South Africa's commercially-dominated broadcasting landscape," comments Thorne.

The member stations have committed themselves to a range of common values, including a people-centred rather than profit-driven approach to broadcasting, editorial and fiduciary independence, freedom of speech and community participation. Act-SA has adopted the tagline, "Action Stations" to reflect its active stance towards community development and communication.

One of the first tasks the association has set itself is to formulate a charter to guide the activities of the sector. The charter will cover areas such as the mandate of community TV, licensing categories and framework, governance, ownership and control, programming, revenue streams and distribution platforms.

The formation of Act- SA will enable the community TV sector to engage collectively with other bodies as a sector rather than individual stations.

For more, email gro.vtenawhst@eiznekcam or call +27 (0) 76 472 2892.