SABC Blues - should they be bailed out?
The public broadcaster is in a financial crisis, yet again. And Terence Pillay says that they should not be bailed out by the state.
LISTEN: Terence Pillay weighs in on SABC's financial crisis
The SABC is in trouble once again. They sent out a memo saying that although they paid last month’s salaries, all its bills cannot be paid. The memo says that payments from their divisions was more than what they had available. They have now earmarked payment to essential suppliers like municipalities, Telkom and the like, which total to about R30-million. And they only have R104-million in their kitty at the moment.
Independent producers are owed about R150-million but after the essentials are paid, the broadcaster only has R74-million left, so these producers have not been paid yet. I’ve spoken to several production houses and they all have the same feeling. They’ve done the work and expect payment, but fear it will not happen.
So how did the SABC actually get itself into such financial dire straits? It all began in the late nineties when the national broadcaster stopped producing any TV themselves. All those beautiful studios were shut down one by one and all production work was outsourced in a move to create work for formerly marginalised local producers. And that was not a bad thing.
But what in fact in happened was: mass nepotism, mass corruption and the allocating of massive budgets to friends for the making of terrible television. Of course the details are quite complicated, but in a nutshell, this once revered broadcaster with a great name turned into a paper-pushing post office of sorts. And now this lethargic, encumbered broadcaster finally seems to have ground to a halt and all independent producers can hope for is that it’s not completely dead.
The SABC has changed management hands faster than a pass-the-parcel game at a child’s party, proving that it is nothing more than a political playground. But nothing could have prepared us for Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who I believe was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. The embattled former chief operations officer created such havoc during his time at the broadcaster that it initiated a Supreme Court intervention as well as led to public outcry over his allegedly dodgy dealings.
It was even reported in a Sunday paper that “Motsoeneng was paid R11.4 million in commissions or bonuses for facilitating a R500 million deal with MultiChoice to create SABC channels on DStv. In response, the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union (Bemawu) called for his bank accounts to be frozen while the claims were investigated.”
Then, of course, it emerged that the SABC was allegedly bankrolling ANN7, which is a TNA (The New Age) channel owned by the Guptas. Business Day reported that former SABC acting CEO Phil Molefe corroborated evidence showing that the public broadcaster paid up to R1 million for episodes of TNA's Morning Live breakfast shows.
Molefe said that the SABC covered the cost of flights, accommodation and food for production staff when the briefings took place outside Johannesburg, while TNA kept the revenue generated from the breakfast briefings, Business Day reported.
So here’s what I want to know; if the SABC was struggling to make their ends meet, why was money being poured into a channel owned by the controversial Guptas, who just happened to be BFFs with our very own president? Former SABC contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko confirmed the claims when he testified before an enquiry stating that “SABC money had been used to build a rival channel, ANN7.”
So could it be that there was method in the madness unfolding in the halls of beleaguered public broadcaster? Could Hlaudi Motsoeneng have been planted there to break the broadcaster so that ANN7 would emerge as the new government mouthpiece? Of course this is just a conspiracy theory and former SABC Board Chairman Ben Ngubabe did deny any money changing hands but admitted that the “airing of TNA’s business breakfasts was beneficial to the SABC.”
So the Gupta’s benefitting from SABC revenue is just a theory, but given everything that is happening in the political landscape of this country right now, is it that farfetched?
What does the SABC mean to you? Should it be bailed out like other parastatals or should it close its doors?
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and tweet him your thoughts.
Independent producers are owed about R150-million but after the essentials are paid, the broadcaster only has R74-million left, so these producers have not been paid yet. I’ve spoken to several production houses and they all have the same feeling. They’ve done the work and expect payment, but fear it will not happen.
So how did the SABC actually get itself into such financial dire straits? It all began in the late nineties when the national broadcaster stopped producing any TV themselves. All those beautiful studios were shut down one by one and all production work was outsourced in a move to create work for formerly marginalised local producers. And that was not a bad thing.
But what in fact in happened was: mass nepotism, mass corruption and the allocating of massive budgets to friends for the making of terrible television. Of course the details are quite complicated, but in a nutshell, this once revered broadcaster with a great name turned into a paper-pushing post office of sorts. And now this lethargic, encumbered broadcaster finally seems to have ground to a halt and all independent producers can hope for is that it’s not completely dead.
The SABC has changed management hands faster than a pass-the-parcel game at a child’s party, proving that it is nothing more than a political playground. But nothing could have prepared us for Hlaudi Motsoeneng, who I believe was the straw that finally broke the camel’s back. The embattled former chief operations officer created such havoc during his time at the broadcaster that it initiated a Supreme Court intervention as well as led to public outcry over his allegedly dodgy dealings.
It was even reported in a Sunday paper that “Motsoeneng was paid R11.4 million in commissions or bonuses for facilitating a R500 million deal with MultiChoice to create SABC channels on DStv. In response, the Broadcasting, Electronic, Media and Allied Workers Union (Bemawu) called for his bank accounts to be frozen while the claims were investigated.”
Then, of course, it emerged that the SABC was allegedly bankrolling ANN7, which is a TNA (The New Age) channel owned by the Guptas. Business Day reported that former SABC acting CEO Phil Molefe corroborated evidence showing that the public broadcaster paid up to R1 million for episodes of TNA's Morning Live breakfast shows.
Molefe said that the SABC covered the cost of flights, accommodation and food for production staff when the briefings took place outside Johannesburg, while TNA kept the revenue generated from the breakfast briefings, Business Day reported.
So here’s what I want to know; if the SABC was struggling to make their ends meet, why was money being poured into a channel owned by the controversial Guptas, who just happened to be BFFs with our very own president? Former SABC contributing editor Vuyo Mvoko confirmed the claims when he testified before an enquiry stating that “SABC money had been used to build a rival channel, ANN7.”
So could it be that there was method in the madness unfolding in the halls of beleaguered public broadcaster? Could Hlaudi Motsoeneng have been planted there to break the broadcaster so that ANN7 would emerge as the new government mouthpiece? Of course this is just a conspiracy theory and former SABC Board Chairman Ben Ngubabe did deny any money changing hands but admitted that the “airing of TNA’s business breakfasts was beneficial to the SABC.”
So the Gupta’s benefitting from SABC revenue is just a theory, but given everything that is happening in the political landscape of this country right now, is it that farfetched?
What does the SABC mean to you? Should it be bailed out like other parastatals or should it close its doors?
You can email Terence Pillay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @terencepillay1 and tweet him your thoughts.