SAMAs to change 'flawed' nomination system after controversy

SAMA officials have promised to tear up the rule book and restructure the way nominations are selected for next year’s awards, after two artistes who made the cut were accused of not being eligible for selection.

A City Press report claimed that Locnville and Miss Pru were both included on the SAMA Record of the Year nominations list, despite not getting enough airplay to warrant their selection.

The two artistes apparently failed to make the top 20 list on one of the reports which was used to select the category’s nominees.

Speaking to TshisaLIVE, Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA) CEO Nhlanhla Sibisi explained that auditors contracted to the organisers consulted two independent lists of radio airplay. Radiomonitor and a local Barcelona Music and Audio Technologies (BMAT) list was used to create an accumulative top 20 list from which to select the nominees for the category.

He acknowledged the artistes may have not made the top 20 on one list but could have made it up by rating higher on the other.

Nhlanhla said the discrepancies between the two lists was a major concern and that they would change the process for next year’s nominations.

“This is an honest lesson learnt. We wanted to consult both lists to make it as objective and fair as possible but we now see that there are very obvious flaws in the system and we need to remedy this,” he explained.

He added that organisers would launch an investigation into which system was best and would adopt only that system next year.

“We cannot allow the integrity of the nominations process to be called into question and we will do everything in our power to make sure that this process is as transparent as possible,” Nhlanhla added.

He said that RiSA had not seen the two lists which were used to make the nominations top 20 and said they would request the lists if the suspicions of foulplay amplified. — Timeslive