{"id":60543,"date":"2024-02-05T16:45:11","date_gmt":"2024-02-05T16:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc"},"modified":"2024-02-05T17:33:27","modified_gmt":"2024-02-05T17:33:27","slug":"battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc","title":{"rendered":"Battle brewing over new laws for the SABC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>Media watchdogs are raising concerns about the future of South Africa\u2019s public broadcaster, warning that the SABC Bill is being expedited through parliament without giving due attention to the funding issues that have been plaguing the broadcaster, possibly jeopardising its independence in the process.<\/p>\n

The SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, Media Monitoring Africa, the SANEF and other media groups are urging the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) to withdraw the SABC Bill and redraft the sections that are problematic.<\/p>\n

If passed in its current form, watchdogs like SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition argue that \u201cthe SABC Bill should ideally provide solutions for the SABC\u2019s ongoing challenges, instead it undermines its independence thus jeopardising its ability to fulfil its mandate.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bill broadly aims to implement the following:<\/p>\n

To repeal the Broadcasting Act of 1999;<\/p>\n

To regulate the continued existence of the South African Broadcasting Corporation SOC Ltd;<\/p>\n

To provide for its governance;<\/p>\n

To amend the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Act of 2000 and the Electronic Communications Act of 2005;<\/p>\n

To provide for matters connected therewith.<\/p>\n

However, these have caused a major stir. \u201cThe Bill\u2019s provisions risk exacerbating the SABC\u2019s financial woes and perpetuating a climate of political interference,\u201d said SOS in a statement.<\/p>\n

Independence issues<\/p>\n

The bill shows that the SABC aims create a subsidiary company to manage its commercial television and radio stations, seeing it operating under a new (additional) board.<\/p>\n

South African National Editors Forum (SANEF) said in a statement that the Bill \u201calso seeks to go back in time and undermine the SABC editorial independence by making the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) the Editor in Chief of the SABC, again.\u201d<\/p>\n

As such, this could see \u201cministerial and the political interference that we witnessed at the SABC [in the Hlaudi Motsoeneng era] and what this bill actually does is it undoes all [of the progress made since then],\u201d said Uyanda Siyatula, managing director of SOS, in an interview with SABC.<\/p>\n

SOS said that calls to scrap the bill are attempts \u201cto safeguard the independence and integrity of our public broadcaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is crucial that ahead of the upcoming elections and beyond, the public broadcaster\u2019s editorial and institutional independence is safeguarded for the SABC to fulfil its role of deepening the country\u2019s democracy,\u201d said SOS, MMA and SANEF in a joint statement.<\/p>\n

Funding issues<\/p>\n

Additionally, the bill gives the Communications minister three years to develop a funding framework for the public broadcaster, which recorded R1.1 billion loss during the 2022\/23 financial year. Currently, it has a mixed funding model, including a television licensing fee.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe SABC has a huge public mandate,\u201d said media expert Professor Justine Limpitlaw in a discussion with the SABC.<\/p>\n

\u201cA public broadcaster with that kind of big public mandate needs the public mandate funded; that has been recognized by the government for decades now… that it is not being properly publicly funded (only 3%)\u201d she explained, alluding to how the television license collection system is too narrow and that a generalised levy is needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government had said \u2018actually we support a generalised levy\u2019… and they promised that this would be provided for in the bill [but] what do we see? Exactly the same television license and worse, the bill says [that]… [the SABC] are going to come up with a public funding [framework] but only in the next three years\u201d in an already resourced strapped public broadcaster, explained Limpitlaw.<\/p>\n

Siyatula said that this idea would cause further financial strain as \u201ca funding framework is not a funding model, so that means in three years there\u2019s going to be a funding framework that they come up with, and then it will take them I don\u2019t know how many years to actually develop a funding model from that framework.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know in the communication sector that they change ministers almost every year, so that actually just means that the SABC might not even get to have that funding model or framework or whatever they are proposing because the ministers will just keep changing, and no one will actually sit and finalise,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, parliament\u2019s portfolio committee on Communications and Digital Technologies will be debating the written submission of the bill.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Africa<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. Media watchdogs are raising concerns about the future of South Africa\u2019s public broadcaster, warning that the SABC Bill is being expedited through parliament without giving due attention to the funding issues that have been plaguing the broadcaster, possibly jeopardising its independence in the process. The SOS Support Public Broadcasting Coalition, Media Monitoring […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":60542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[274,315,275],"class_list":["post-60543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-south-africa","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nBattle brewing over new laws for the SABC - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Media watchdogs are raising concerns about the future of South Africa\u2019s public broadcaster, warning that the SABC Bill i ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Battle brewing over new laws for the SABC\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Media watchdogs are raising concerns about the future of South Africa\u2019s public broadcaster, warning that the SABC Bill i ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-02-05T16:45:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-02-05T17:33:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2024\/02\/sm_1707141681.813024.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Battle brewing over new laws for the SABC\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-02-05T16:45:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-02-05T17:33:27+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc\"},\"wordCount\":724,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2024\/02\/sm_1707141681.813024.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-South-Africa\",\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/battle-brewing-over-new-laws-for-the-sabc\",\"name\":\"Battle brewing over new laws for the SABC - 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