The SABC has certainly made some inroads in restoring and getting some of its luster back - the public broadcaster's VIP lounge at the 13th Cape Town Jazz Festival where the SABC was one of the sponsors was wonderful and gave a superb and very professional impression of the SABC - one of the best I've experienced in years.
The SABC VIP lounge where I spotted some SABC executives, SABC board members as well as clients of the corporation, was better than virtually any other of the VIP lounges where Vodacom, Netstar, the department of arts and culture, and several others wined and dined guests Friday and Saturday night.
The 13th Cape Town Jazz Festival was and continues to be an excellent showcase event for the SABC to attach itself to as a brand, and this year it really helped to ''bring back'' the SABC, imbuing the broadcaster with a sense of real and quality content. (Of course this presence of the SABC at the jazz festival follows the J&B Met earlier this year where the SABC also had a marquee presence - and was suddenly this year the tent to be at.)
It's behind the scenes during this year's jazz festival last week where the SABC really shined however. When the SABC was barred - first from a Esp Afrika photography workshop course Wednesday by an extremely rude and utterly arrogant fascilitator, and again from a Esp Afrika arts journalism workshop on Thursday (remember the SABC is actually the sponsor), extremely professional SABC representatives were exemplary in their conduct.
After press groups (containing journalists and photographers specially flown in from elsewhere to Cape Town to attend) were barred at the door, it was the SABC's Papa Mbonga and Suzette Pretorius (both from the SABC's corporate marketing division) who quickly made other plans.
I cannot underline enough how well experienced, adept at managing situations, and well-versed in crisis communication these two are. The professionalism they showed is what I felt the SABC actually clearly has in pockets within the corporation, but is so rarely seen.
It's not that things can't go wrong; it's how people respond when it does happen which shows whether they have a grasp and deserve their job titles.
The SABC's sponsorship of the 13th Cape Town Jazz Festival and the SABC's actual presence felt to me different from numerous previous occasions.
It felt for the first time in years as if a sense of pride was back at and within the SABC. It felt as if the SABC as a corporation is getting back to not the basics, but back to the ''normal'' way a broadcaster interacts or deals when it deals with clients and stakeholders, like for instance other press covering the SABC. It was extremely professional, it was extremely proper and very well done.
