The root of the SABC’s failure

THE South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is going to have to avoid covering its own annual reports in future if the goal of its perennially acting chief operating officer, Hlaudi Motsoeneng — that the public broadcaster’s current affairs programmes be “balanced with 70% good news and 30% bad news” — is to be achieved.

The latest version of the document, tabled by Communications Minister Yunus Carrim in Parliament on Tuesday, amounts to an unmitigated series of bad-news stories, ranging from the disclaimer slapped on its finances by AuditorGeneral Terence Nombembe, to the R1,5bn spent on consultants and other service providers that could not be properly accounted for, and R913m in TV licence-fee income of which there is scant evidence.

Then there is R106m in irregular spending due to proper tender procedures not being followed, the understatement of the SABC’s tax liability by R47m, the lack of any provision for financial liabilities arising from lawsuits, despite the broadcaster being embroiled in several such cases, and the admission by management that it has not met performance targets attached to a R1.4bn loan guarantee approved by the government in 2009.

The SABC’s TV stations are steadily losing viewers, and key revenue streams, especially sponsorships, the sale of content and advertising revenue, are well below budget. Yet it has just launched a 24hour TV news service on the platform of its main rival, DStv, that will be expensive to run and extremely difficult to turn to profitability — even if it is managed competently.

The governance crisis that has plagued the SABC for years shows little sign of abating, the controversy over the manner of Mr Motsoeneng’s appointment, not to mention his eccentric views on media freedom and editorial independence, being a good example. Mr Carrim has clearly been handed a poisoned chalice, but that does not mean he has to drink its contents. Unfortunately, that seems to be precisely what he is about to do by forming yet another task team to consider the SABC’s financial viability.

This starts from the wrong premise — that the SABC just needs to be managed better for all to come right. Yet what is really needed is for the government to acknowledge that it has no business trying to compete with the private sector in the news or entertainment businesses. The SABC lurches from crisis to crisis because it is not subject to the discipline of the market, and as long as it is placed artificially in a position of inordinate influence in society, its appointments will always be prone to political manipulation by the ruling party.

Its various commercial channels should be privatised and only a USstyle public broadcast service should be retained to fulfil the state’s responsibility to support minor cultural and language groups.

This inappropriate emphasis on the state as a major player in economic sectors where private enterprise would be able to provide a better, more cost-effective service if left alone, is also proving to be problematic in other areas, specifically the aviation sector.

Here, too, Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba is talking about “integrating” state-owned airlines South African Airways, Mango and SA Express under one holding company, rather than rethinking the entire philosophical basis for its involvement in the sector.

It may, at a push, be possible to motivate the need for a “national carrier” that covers routes that are not necessarily commercially viable but are of strategic importance to the achievement of the country’s policy goals. But that does not apply to a regional feeder service such as SA Express — there are existing privately owned services that would fill the gap in a trice. And it certainly does not apply to budget carrier Mango, which merely presents unfair competition to genuine lowcost airlines.