The South African television industry is not happy with the SABC and the South African public broadcaster's new turnaround strategy, with the industry that's appalled at not having been consulted at all in the matter.
In an open letter to the SABC, SASFED - the massive federation of independent film and TV industry organisations that collectively represent thousands of workers within the South African television production community - says that it ''has not in any way been accomodated for consultation on the SABC's turnaround plan''.
In the strongly-worded letter, SASFED says it wants this ''immediately rectified'' and to be invited ''to consultations on the SABC's turnaround plan and its implementation''. This week in parliament the SABC board presented an outline of its turnaround plan to the portfolio commitee on communications and how the beleaguered public broadcaster plans to dig itself out of massive debt, a skills shortage, corruption, mismanagement, an overload of middle management staff, bad programming, a crippling commissioning content hub and several other issues.
''The fortunes of the SABC depend on it being rooted in a . . . collaborative relationship with . . . the independent production sector,'' says SASFED. Among the issues SASFED cites that the SABC needs to ''address for a meaningful turnaround'' include commissioning procedures for local content and the amount of local content, the role of independent producers, intellectual property and copyright (see my story HERE), co-productions, licensing and the issue of residual payments.
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