Magic station crackles into money, ego static
Music broadcaster hobbled by disputes between founders
● It promised Bon Jovi from Bishopscourt to Bishop Lavis. But a radio station co-founded by Iqbal Survé in 2015 hit a sour note with several founding members who left after a row.
Now Magic828, one of only two new commercial broadcasters in recent years, is sitting without new-shareholder approval from the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), which is deliberating over its new ownership application.
In its licence application, Magic828 extolled the hope of uniting Cape Town’s fractured society with foot-stomping retro tunes, under the leadership of veteran broadcaster Tony Sanderson. Founding shareholders also included Survé’s Sekunjalo Investments (now African Equity Empowerment Investments, or AEEI), Cape Media and several empowerment partners, including the Umkhonto weSizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) and the Western Cape Black Business Chamber.
The consortium pitched a “hits” and “hits history” station. “Our form of ‘mainly music’ with a touch of talk, a note of news and a splash of sport will resonate with every listener, be they in Constantia or Khayelitsha,” the station said. It said it had “all the ingredients of a sure hit”.
Not so, according to Sanderson and Cape Media, who this week confirmed their departure within three years of the 2015 launch.
“The separation was not amicable and we chose to exit as the relationship with the other shareholders had broken down,” said Cape Media’s Andrew Brading, who, with colleague Andrew Fehrsen, was pivotal in launching the station.
Sanderson also confirmed an acrimonious end to his Magic dream and said the bust-up was a personal disappointment as he was convinced of the station’s potential.
“My ideals and their ideals were completely different and we called it a day,” he said, declining to comment further.
Senior technical manager Peter Goodacre said he was no longer involved either.
The Sunday Times has established that the falling out was largely due to disagreement over finances, compounded by a lukehindsight, warm market reception. The initial projection of over 300,000 listeners was in stark contrast to estimates by the Broadcasting Research Council of SA of 13,000 in 2017 and just 8,000 in 2018.
Sources with intimate knowledge of the Cape Town radio industry said the station did not receive the financial injection needed to broaden its market footprint. There was also disagreement over how to run the business.
“It was not radio anymore, just a hodgepodge of bureaucracy,” said one source. Others spoke of heated exchanges in the boardroom as the partners began to bicker.
An AEEI spokesperson said the “original anticipated period in which Magic would generate any significant revenue was, with underestimated. It has taken far longer than originally anticipated for the station to generate sufficient revenue to turn profitable.”
The spokesperson said that apart from the RAMS surveys, Magic conducted independent surveys. Listeners streaming the station via mobile apps or desktops had doubled to 22,000 in the past year. It would be “relatively safe to assume the listenership is in the region of 150,000-170,000”.
It is understood that a new investor met Icasa in August to submit the required application but is still awaiting formal approval.
Icasa did not clarify the reasons for the delay. “The regulations require that any change in shareholding by a broadcasting service licensee should be approved by Icasa, meaning that no licensee may change its shareholding, whether big or small, without prior approval by the authority” said spokesperson Paseka Maleka.
But sources said it appeared the station was forced to broadcast without prior approval due to a bureaucratic shambles at Icasa. The regulator did not respond to Sunday Times requests for clarity on this point.
Survé declined to respond to queries about his investment in Magic. A Sekunjalo spokesperson said: “No matter how factually these questions are answered by Dr Survé, they will be misrepresented to suit your/ Sunday Times’ particular agenda. This has been the case in every other engagement between yourselves and Dr Survé.”
Icasa records show the licensing authority deliberated over whether the MKMVA’s 10% stake in the station contravened the Electronic Communications Act, which prohibits the issuing of a licence to any organisation of a party-political nature. It concluded the MKMVA was not the majority shareholder and the consortium itself was eligible.
Neither MKMVA spokesman Carl Niehaus nor the Western Cape Black Business Chamber responded to queries.