(FXI/IFEX) – The following is an FXI statement: FXI’s preliminary response to Broadcasting Amendment Bill The Freedom of Expression Institute is deeply disturbed by numerous provisions contained in the Broadcasting Amendment Bill, especially surrounding the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). The Bill seeks to amend provisions contained in the Broadcasting Act of 1999, which has […]
(FXI/IFEX) – The following is an FXI statement:
FXI’s preliminary response to Broadcasting Amendment Bill
The Freedom of Expression Institute is deeply disturbed by numerous provisions contained in the Broadcasting Amendment Bill, especially surrounding the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC). The Bill seeks to amend provisions contained in the Broadcasting Act of 1999, which has led to the restructuring of the SABC into a corporatised entity and the separation of its radio and television stations into public and public commercial services. The public commercial services are meant to cross-subsidise the public services, in the process making the SABC financially self-sufficient and thereby freeing the government of the obligation to fund it. The government has also indicated that it may privatise some or all of the public commercial services.
The FXI has conducted a preliminary analysis of the Bill, and has found that numerous provisions in the Bill, coupled with statements made by Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe Cassaburi in Parliament on 13 August, confirm our worst fears about the government’s intentions with the SABC: namely, to ensure that it reverts from a public broadcaster to a state broadcaster. This slide into state broadcasting is a trend that South Africa needs to take extremely seriously, as it represents a major reversal of the country’s democratic principles.
The trend towards state broadcasting was established in the Broadcasting Act, which increased government control over the finances of the SABC: an ironic arrangement given that the SABC receives barely any government funding. Also, a supposed lacunae in the Act led to Cabinet claiming final appointment powers over the three top management position, namely the Chief Financing Officer, the Chief Operating Officer and the Chief Executive Officer. In the process, one of the fundamental tenants of independence was violated, namely the independence of the Board to finalise appointments on its own.
The Amendment Bill builds on this trends by making even deeper inroads into the SABC’s independence. The Bill contains a clause stating that the “…Board must ensure accurate, accountable and fair reporting by the Corporation, which advances national, and public interest of the Republic”. In order to achieve these objectives, the Bill requires the Board to prepare and submit for approval a set of policies in line with these objectives, including policies for the public service division relating to news editorial policy, programming policy, local content policy, educational policy, universal service and access policy and language policy. These policies must – in terms of the Bill – reflect the constitutional principles of fairness, equality and equitable treatment of all segments of the South African population, including language equity, the right to receive and impart information, a full range of audience interests and standards of accuracy and impartiality in public interest matters.
The injunction for the Board to ensure accurate, accountable and fair reporting is completely inappropriate, given that it is the role of the editor to do so: a role that not even the Board can interfere with. It is clear that reporting standards must be governed by a policy, but for such a policy to be subject to approval by the Minister is a travesty of the basic principles of public broadcasting that cannot be allowed. These plans will no doubt result in a code that forces journalists to report in a manner that conforms to the government’s own understanding of what constitutes the national and the public interest. Needless to say, this understanding will by definition not include reporting that will be critical of its own performance.
The FXI has noted that the government decided to restore s. 6(2) of the Broadcasting Act in the latest version of the Bill, which guarantees the SABC freedom of expression and journalistic independence (it had been taken out of an earlier version). This decision appears to be a cosmetic attempt to fix the Bill after public criticism. It is a meaningless gesture in the sense that the substantive provisions that reduce the independence of the SABC remain.
With respect to the substance of the policies to be approved by the Minister, some are extremely important in intention, especially those around language equity and universal service and access. It is essential that the SABC has clear targets on these aspects of its performance, and it may be the case that the Corporation has been very slow in developing policies in this respect: however, subjecting these policies to Ministerial approval involves arriving at legitimate ends using completely inappropriate means.
However, in the media coverage on the Bill, very little attention has been paid to other aspects of the Bill that are as, if not more, disturbing than those involving the above mentioned policies. After incorporation, two management Boards will be established from members of the existing Board, the CEO, CFO and COO. There will be one Board for the public commercial division and one for the public service division, with non-executive Board members being nominated by the Minister. Also, the two Boards will operate according to Memoranda and Articles of Association developed by the Minister. In effect, all key policy and operational functions of the SABC will have to be approved by the Minister, which makes the independence of the Board virtually non-existent.
The fact that the Broadcasting Amendment Bill may place the cross-subsidisation of public services by public commercial services in jeopardy – as reported by the Mail and Guardian this week – is even more cause for worry. One of the main aims of the Broadcasting Act was to ensure that the SABC became financially self-sufficient through the cross-subsidisation arrangement. The FXI has long argued that the SABC simply cannot afford self-sufficiency, as the complexity of its mandate can be realised only through access to public funding. The realities at the SABC have borne this argument out, given that it has barely been able to meet its mandate through the revenues it generates, especially in relation to its language mandate. As a result, the FXI has noted a trend that public services are being made to pursue commercial interests and become financially self-sufficient, which is leading to the repositioning of stations to prioritise upwardly mobile listeners. In the process, programmes and even whole formats such as drama have been cut back and there is increasing pressure to merge or syndicate programming such as sport across stations broadcasting within language clusters. Any unraveling of the cross-subsidisation arrangement will exacerbate these problems.
These developments say very clearly that the SABC cannot afford self-sufficiency and requires public subsidy, which has not been forthcoming from the government. Therefore, the fact that the SABC is not publicly accountable is a problem of the government’s creation, as it has not been given the financial means to ensure that it can become accountable in terms of its mandate. No amount of policy making, as proposed by the Amendment Bill, will increase its accountability until this problem is solved.
In any event, the cross-subsidisation arrangement was bound to unravel if the government pursued the privatisation of some or all of the public commercial services, as it is these services that cross-subsidise these public services. As a result, we have argued that the corporatisation arrangement will pull itself apart by virtue of its own internal logic, which is now what is taking place.
Trends in radio listenership confirm that SABC public services are ill. Radio listenership figures released by the South African Advertising Research Foundation from July 1999 to date show declining radio listenerships on nearly all SABC African language public service stations, with listenership having declined from 67,3% to 64,2%. This is especially so in rural areas, amongst women and the elderly, and in areas and languages where there is, more often than not, very little competition: therefore it cannot be surmised that these listeners are migrating to other services. While this trend still has to be understood fully, it can be inferred that these stations are not servicing the needs of these constituencies, and that listeners are tuning out. Under the circumstances, it is to be anticipated that the SABC’s inability to deliver will lead to a vicious cycle where explosions of public anger against the SABC lead to greater government intervention under the guise of “making the SABC accountable”.
The Bill is a tragedy not only for South Africa’s democratic traditions. It has implications for the Southern African region and the continent as well. The SABC is often held up as a model for public broadcasting, especially in countries where people are struggling to transform state broadcasters into public broadcasters. We are already seeing the harmonisation of media policy and legislation at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) level, and can expect similar developments at the continental level with the formation of the African Union. Also, the SABC is increasingly providing programming for the continent through SABC Africa and Africa to Africa, which will also be affected by these tighter controls (especially on editorial content). If the changes proposed in the Broadcasting Amendment Bill go through, then these “models” stand to be replicated as “best practice”, which would be a great setback for media freedom on the continent.
With respect to the intention through the Bill to set up two state-funded regional television channels, it is essential for a diversity of services in languages other than English and Afrikaans to be established. However, diversity will be created only if the SABC is functioning properly as a public broadcaster in terms of its language mandate, which clearly it is unable to do without the necessary public funding. To create another set of parallel state broadcasters when the SABC is not being optimised does not make sense, and also exposes as baseless the argument that the government does not have the money to fund broadcasting services. Another implication of setting up these services is that the SABC could no longer lay sole claim to the licence fee, given that public service obligations are now being carried by these other services. The partial loss of the licence fee would have an even more severe impact on the finances of the public service arm of the SABC, and will lead to its further marginalisation. The fact that the government has decided on their establishment pre-empts ICASA’s enquiry into regional television and brings the regulator’s independence into question, as well by undermining its ability to decide who should be awarded these licences.
