A Petition has started calling on advertisers to boycott the SABC and to stop advertising on the South African public broadcaster due to the SABC's unwillingness to end the censorship of SABC TV News regarding the broadcast of public protests.
The petition, started on the community advocacy organisation Amandla.mobi's website, is asking advertisers to stop advertising on the SABC until its ends SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng's censorship decree, and is asking the South African public to let advertisers know that they will no longer buy their products and services if they continue to advertise on the SABC.
The online petition asks that Clientele Life, Chicken Licken, FNB, Vodacom, Carling Black Label, Checkers, Telkom boycott the SABC and stop advertising on the SABC.
"More and more organisations and political parties including the ANC, agree with us that what is happening at the SABC is wrong. But the situation at the SABC is deteriorating rapidly, with journalists facing suspension and more and more evidence surfacing of censorship. This calls for a different approach," says the petition.
"We know the SABC makes much of its revenue from advertising, so together with our allies from the SOS Coalition and Media Monitoring Africa, let's call on some of the SABC's largest advertisers - Clientele, Chicken Licken, FNB, Vodacom, Carling Black Label, Checkers, Telkom and others - to pause their advertising with our SABC until this censorship is brought to and end".
The South African broadcasting regulator, Icasa, on Monday ruled that the SABC's censorship of SABC TV News is wrong and needs to be stopped immediately, retroactively to 26 May.
The SABC's controversial chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng said the SABC will not listen to Icasa, that "no-one is going to tell us what to do", and that the SABC will fight the ruling to the Constitutional Court.
