‘Make the most of extended airtime’
SABC chief executive Hlaudi Motsoeneng was in Durban on Friday to interact with local artists and performers in the music industry at The Playhouse.
Motsoeneng, on a countrywide road trip, listened to concerns of artists and gave them advice on how they could make the most of the extended airtime available to them and forge ahead in the industry.
“Generally, the 90 percent policy has been well received by most people, including the people we met.
“As far as we are concerned, the policy is here to stay at this stage, unless we hear otherwise,” said the SABC’s spokesman, Kaizer Kganyago.
Last month, the SABC announced that the playlists of all its affiliated radio stations would be required to contain at least 90 percent local content.
The new content policy has had its fair share of reverberations. Community stations catering largely for Indian listeners said they had experienced a spike in listenership.
On the flipside, Bollywood show promoters expressed great concern that the new move would affect their livelihoods, and there were also fears that Lotus FM’s listenership would plummet.
Kganyago said he was aware some people were unhappy and mobilising to oppose the policy.
“We understand that people have a petition going to oppose our 90 percent policy. We will wait until they complete their relevant processes before we respond.”
He said opponents of the policy raised the issue of not enough musicians and content as their biggest gripe. However, the government’s response was to ask why people didn’t professionalise the local music industry and use the opportunity to empower the community.