Jane Duncan

Sowetan, 18 March 1998 

Recently there has been public debate about the future of broadcasting in South Africa in the context of globalisation. Government officials have also called for broadcasting to contribute to the Growth, Employment and Redistribution (Gear) programme by creating an export market for its products.

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), in particular, has been put in the spotlight with a comment in Parliament recently that it should be transformed into "a world class public broadcaster in the face of increased global competitiveness".

This rhetoric is becoming normalised , the new "common sense". Yet at the same time documents like the recent green paper on broadcasting say that the sector has a role to play in nation building. Are these the objectives compatible, particularly with regard to the development of a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) ?

Public broadcasting services are cast in the logic of welfarism, where the social responsibilities of the state are emphasised. With increasing globalisation of the economy after the fiscal crisis of the 1970's, states have come under pressure from forces favouring economic globalisation to pare down their operations, and to intervene in only the most "necessary" areas to facilitate foreign investment. This has given rise to waves of privatisation and cutbacks of social spending. State institutions not privatised have been increasingly subject to managerialist and market reasoning, with pressure on them to operate more along business lines (in other words, more efficiently).

A strategy that has been used to prepare the ground arguments was to deprive the institutions of state funding, and then to point to their "inefficiency". Internationally, the corporatisation of public institutions has become a stepping stone in their reorientation towards the market, especially in broadcasting, and is often a prelude to privatisation.

It is in this context that proposals tabled in Parliament recently to amend the founding legislation of the SABC, the Broadcasting Act of 19976, should be evaluated. The amendment, in the form of a draft Bill, seeks to corporatise the SABC, in the process making the State ( in effect the Minister of Communications) the sole shareholder. While corporatisation can mean many things - and in fact several PBS’S around the world have been corporatised - the concept can only be unpacked in relation to the reasons put forward for this move.

The Government has made the proposal to facilitate a change in culture at the SABC from what exists currently (whatever that is) to a public institution run along business lines. This will ostensibly allow the corporation to enter into partnerships and take advantage of foreign investment. Can a public broadcaster run along these lines deliver on its public service mandate at the same time, namely to inform, educate and entertain, and play a role in nation building as per the green paper?

It appears that the subtext of this proposal is that the SABC is not going to receive funding from the state on an ongoing basis. The Freedom of Expression Institute has argued that the state funding is necessary to ensure a PBS that is not driven by a commercial need to "deliver audiences to advertisers". There are certain forms of educational and informational programming that will simply never be attractive to advertisers, but which is of vital social importance. Whether such programmes will succeed in global markets is unlikely: languages and idioms relating to our national circumstances may well fall foul of the shibboleth of international competitiveness. State funding of the PBS is not a luxury but an absolute necessity: it should be provided through provided through a parliamentary vote on a triennial basis so that the PBS has the financial stability to plan in advance. This should be coupled with a welter of strategies ensuring good governance that does not involve corporatisation.

The recent corporatisation proposals will bring the SABC’s editorial independence into question. Under the existing Act, the minister appoints the board, the single most important body most in need of protection against political interference.

BLANK CHEQUE

The appointment procedures in terms of the proposed Bill are not known as they are to be included in a still-to-be drafted memorandum of association, so in effect the minister is asking us to endorse a blank cheque. Also, such memoranda are subordinate to legislation. In strict company law terms they can be changed by the shareholder without recourse to Parliament. While the minister is politically accountable to Parliament, he will be held accountable in terms of the laws of the country. But if the law does not make provision for certain procedures, then he cannot be held legally accountable for his actions. To enshrine these procedures in documents with lesser status is politically dangerous.

Furthermore, there can be no greater violation of the SABC’s editorial independence than subjecting it to the dictates of the market. In the total information picture, media driven by the profit motive is expanding all the time, and the existence of non-commercial media is under threat. Hence there is an urgent need to defend the existence of all three tiers of broadcasting - namely community, public service and commercial broadcasting - on the principle of diversity.

In fact, nation building is best served by this approach as space will be made for constituencies that are not wealthy enough to really constitute viable "markets" for advertisers. Clearly, the underlying tensions between nation building and globalisation in relation to the broadcasting should be subjected to public debate, and the correct forum is the policy review currently under way.

Yet the policy debate on the character of the SABC seems to have been closed in that a particular shape for the SABC has already been assumed. If legislation is a codification of policy positions, what policies are these draft pieces of legislation being based on and why are they not being subject to review ?

Given these developments, it is difficult not to ask whether we are being set up. Currently, the notion of a publicly funded PBS is under attack internationally, with many saying that it is a modernists idea out of synch with current realities.

Welfarism may have had its day but the social needs it attempted to address are still very much with us. In fact, untrammelled globalisation has become notions for exacerbating the gaps between rich and poor.

We therefore have no reason to believe that gearing South African broadcasting towards international competitiveness will close these gaps. Therefore, the right of the masses to lay claim to state resources to develop media that reflect their aspirations remains. In this regard, we should be sceptical about the discourse that seeks to convince us that "there is no alternative", that state resources will not stretch as far as funding a PBS.

The basis on which the state allocates resources is a very tricky and complex debate. The very fact that Robert Young states: "The effect of certain discourses is to make it virtually impossible to think outside of them." So it is with the discourse on globalisation. Let us not censor ourselves and surrender our right to think freely on these matters.