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I can exclusively report back first on yesterday's full day meeting of the Television Industry Emergency Coalition (TVIEC) at the Goethe Institute in Johannesburg.
I just got off the phone with Desiree Markgraaff, chairperson of the Independent Producers' Organisation (IPO), and a member of the TVIEC steering committee.
Basically millions of rands are still outstanding and owed by the SABC to producers and the production industry in South Africa, there is a huge concern regarding the public broadcaster's continued reduction of work and no new production commissions, and continued confusion regarding the process of royalty payments outstanding by the SABC that's payable for repeats.
For a basic summary of yesterday's TVIEC meeting and what Desiree Markgraaff told me, click on READ MORE below.
The TVIEC have now met with the new group CEO of the SABC, Solly Mokoetle and the new SABC board a number of times, the TVIEC tells me.
''There's still moneys outstanding that's payable to producers but the SABC is making headway with regard to those payments,'' Desiree Markgraaff, chairperson of the Independent Producers' Organisation (IPO), and a member of the TVIEC steering committee told me a short while ago.
''That is the one real concern. The other big issue that remains is that of the lack of new work commissions and the SABC that has not yet unblocked the flow of new work. That is a huge concern for the whole production industry in South Africa. The South African production industry needs to prepare themselves for te impact of that,'' she says.
''The SABC has been making it clear to us that they still got financial difficulties and constraints and that the production industry will be feeling the impact of that in terms of a vastly reduced level of content procurement by the public broadcaster. The SABC has done no new content procurement this year - in fact it's more than a year now for the industry that no new work has been commissioned by the SABC since last February and March.''
I asked Desiree Markgraaff whether it's possible for the TVIEC to place a new number on the amount of outstanding debt the SABC owes to the local production industry.
''It's very difficult to put a number forth but it's still many millions of rands,'' she says. ''We're still trying to analyse what the final number is together with the SABC's COO Charlotte Mampane. Certainly from our original list there is still between R7 million to R8 million outstanding and that doesn't include any royalty payments for repeats.''
''The last of the outstanding debt owed to production companies were supposed to be settled by the end of January by the SABC which hasn't happened but we did get the commitment from the SABC's interim board as well as Solly Mokoetle, the new group CEO of the SABC that it will be resolved. ''We were promised that it will now happen at the end of this month of March, which is the middle of next week and we will watch closely to see if it happens. We are and will continue to work very closely with the SABC to get the balance of outstanding amounts paid, and to also get an updated list of what money is still owed to whom.''
''We have had a number of meetings with the new SABC board. We're very positive about it, we believe it's a strong SABC board and we're encouraged by what they're already doing and saying.''
