How do you know when something is a big issue and extremely sensitive?
When absolutely nobody wants to talk about it publicly. Of course the irony gets even bigger when its major media conglomerates and media companies who are in the business of communication, work themselves with information and sell information commercially - and yet don't want to communicate publicly.
The big issue South Africa's TV industry is privately discussing, clearly now very scared of, not willing to talk about publicly and not doing anything to try and influence public opinion as would be the case in America or Europe, is this: The National Consumer Commission (NCC) that has issued a compliance notice to South Africa's pay TV operators last month, ordering them to restructure their channel line-ups and to price TV channels separately.
Not it seems there's silent angst in South Africa's TV industry, scared of the vast and sweeping impact such a change could have on the television community in the country.
Conceivably, were such a change to be imposed on pay TV operators in South Africa, it would affect South Africa's broadcasters all negatively - from the SABC and e.tv to M-Net and even community television stations who's TV channels are included on both MultiChoice's DStv, as well as On Digital Media's TopTV pay services.
Last week I asked the eNews Channel (DSv 403), where e.tv and the channel stands on the issue. The 24 hour news channel, locally produced from South Africa by e.tv is one of the perfect examples of what could happen if the National Consumer Commission's order is enforced.
The eNews Channel is currently the number one most popular of all the news channels available on MultiChoice's DStv. It's success story and strong growth is being fuelled by its inclusion in the DStv Compact bouquet.
If the order is enforced to a so-called ''a la carte'' channel picking approach, it's conceivable that the eNews Channel would suffer and decline greatly - if not maybe forced to discontinue and disappear. That has an impact on local TV content, availble breadth of choice, independent news and news gathering and will result in a less pluristic news environment overall in South Africa and less jobs.
Any 24 hour news TV channel holds a much smaller attraction factor to the general pay TV subscriber who will pick sport, movies and general entertainment TV channels first before electing to pay for news in the same way that People magazine has a bigger subscriber base than the struggling newsies TIME or Newsweek.
The eNews Channel and e.tv however does not want to weigh in on this issue at all. The eNews Channel and e.tv declined comment about what e.tv feels and the position the broadcaster has about this very important issue. ''This is a matter for MultiChoice as the bouquet operator to handle, and [we] will not be commenting on the issue,'' says Vasilli Vass of e.tv.
Strangely enough, South Africa's National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) also doesn't have any comment on the matter of so-called ''unbundling'' although it's an issue ultimately directly affecting all South African broadcasters which the order will have an impact on.
ALSO READ: What the real impact on you as a consumer and as a pay TV subscriber is going to be if pay TV operators have to ''unbundle'' their bouquets and sell TV channels separately - and how you can complain about it.
ALSO READ: Why the National Consumer Commission is clueless about ordering South Africa's pay TV operators to sell their TV channels separately, which is a bad move.
ALSO READ: South Africa's pay TV in peril: How the National Consumer Commission will break South Africa's pay TV industry if the force the so-called ''unbundling'' of channels.
