While the FXI welcomed most of the recommendations contained in the Triple Inquiry Report, it was particularly concerned about the recommendations pertaining to private television licences. The IBA recommended that only one private television licence be granted in 1998. In view of the fact that the only other television service in South Africa apart from the SABC is M-Net - and this is a cable service that is not freely available - the FXI felt that the IBA recommendation on one private TV licence would not be in the public interest. This recommendation would not meet the requirement for ensuring diversity within the broadcasting sector, which was one of the requirements the IBA was meant to fulfil.
What seemed clear was that the IBA made this recommendation in the belief that the present availability of advertising would only be able to sustain one extra channel. In view of this, the FXI proposed that the state - as a distinctly different entity to that of the government (which is controlled by a ruling party or party coalitions) - should fund the SABC. The amount of funding should not be decided by the majority party in Parliament. Parliamentary agreement would have to be reached by multi-party consensus. Were this to be done, there would automatically be space for more TV channels because the SABC's segment of the advertising market would now be available to others. Such a step would further enhance the creation of community TV and regional stations because another private broadcaster by its very nature would run on a lower budget than the SABC. In addition, radio stations would also benefit because the extra radio advertising would enable more radio licences to be granted and would certainly stren gthen the resources of this sector.
This proposal is not new, as the FXI made similar proposals in earlier IBA submissions. The argument was that a public broadcaster which sets out to gather advertising to finance its services is not primarily serving the public interest but that of the advertisers. Such services set out to deliver audiences - or numbers of viewers - for advertisers. That is their primary aim and the FXI believes that the two masters cannot be served simultaneously, though, on occasions, their interests may coincide.
The FXI believes that the current revenue from licences is both inadequate and unsatisfactory. Reports indicate that the SABC spent more on trying to force people to pay their licence fees than on the income derived from the actual payment. The FXI suggested a method of the state raising revenue for the SABC by inserting a section dealing with this in the annual income tax return. FXI estimates show that the current budget of the SABC can be met by levies from taxpayers at only slightly more than the current TV licence fee.
One other concern about the IBA recommendation on the private TV licences is that the delay in granting such a licence is far too great. The organisation believes that the delay will allow satellite transmissions to consolidate their position to the possible detriment of the newcomer.
The other concern raised by the FXI with regard to the IBA report did not concern any particular recommendation, but rather the absence of any recommendation regarding the "political protection" of the SABC. The FXI has recommended that the public hearings of nominees that was part of the process of appointing members of the public to the first "post-apartheid SABC board in 1993, be entrenched in law. The organisation further recommended that the law be amended to repeal the sections which give the President the right to appoint the Board. With regard to the SABC's obligation to be accountable to the public and not the government of the day, the FXI proposed that it be made a requirement that public statements should be issued if any meetings took place between cabinet ministers and their deputies and members of the SABC Board and its senior officials, with the exceptions of the news and current affairs staff. A further recommendation from the FXI to ensure that the SABC conducts its affairs in a transparent nature, is that SABC board meetings should be open for observation to the public and the media so that the proceedings can be reported.