The SABC says it's not planning to sell off its struggling SABC3 TV channel, nor its 5FM, Good Hope FM or Metro FM radio stations.

by Thinus Ferreira

The South African public broadcaster says that the SABC has made no plans or decisions to get rid off and to sell of either its SABC3 TV channel, nor its Metro FM, 5FM, or Good Hope FM radio stations.

The SABC has been evaluating what the struggling broadcaster's "non-core" assets and services are which it should get rid of, but the broadcaster says SABC3, Metro FM, Good Hope FM and 5FM have not been targeted.

"The SABC has been made aware of an article by Inside Politics African Narrative published on 4 February 2020, claiming to have exclusive access to a document titled ‘Repurposing the State-Owned Enterprises as Instruments for Economic Growth’," Mmoni Seapolelo, SABC spokesperson says in a statement.

According to the article, the public broadcaster could sell off SABC3, Metro FM, 5FM and Good Hope FM and dump its entire commercial broadcasting services as part of reducing its broadcasting mandate.

"Because of the potential uncertainty this information can cause the SABC believes it is necessary to clarify that it is not intending to sell the assets mentioned in the article and has had no discussions with government in this regard," the SABC says.

"As requested by National Treasury and the ministry of communications and digital technologies, the SABC is conducting a thorough process of assessing all its assets, determining which are core and non-core, taking into account a range of factors including public mandate, licence conditions and financial contribution."

The SABC says that the SABC board has approved comprehensive assessment criteria for determining its "core media assets",and says that this includes not only TV and radio channels which are contributing to its public mandate but also ones which help to fund the SABC's public service obligations.

"The SABC board has already identified non-core property assets and has drawn up a list of properties for disposal, as required by National Treasury preconditions."

"The potential disposal of any of the SABC's media assets involves a much more complex decision matrix, with factors such as the public interest, the public mandate and the future financial sustainability of the SABC being central to any decision," the SABC says.

"The SABC remains committed to ensuring that the public service broadcaster fulfils its public service mandate and at the same time striving to be a financially sustainable institution," says Mmoni Seapolelo.

The SABC fires longtime DJ Nigel Pierce from Good Hope FM who lashes out saying the broadcaster claimed he was a 'risk to the brand'; talks about 'veiled threats', haphazard planning meetings.

The longtime radio DJ Nigel Pierce has been abruptly fired and let go from the SABC's Good Hope FM radio station in Cape Town after 15 years, with his last day on-air that was supposed to be 29 March, but saying he was given a termination letter on Friday in front of other staff  and abruptly locked out from the SABC's premises.

There's been no statement or comment yet from the SABC.

Good Hope FM (GHFM) listeners were shocked when Nigel Pierce was absent on Friday from his regular Good Hope FM slot.

Nigel Pierce is apparently one of the freelance SABC talent getting fired like Ashraf Garda at the SABC's SAfm radio station at the end of this month.

Nigel Pierce was however allegedly taken off the airwaves and his Radio Police slot, immediately after he told viewers on the air on Wednesday that his last day is going to be 29 March. According to Nigel Pierce, he refused and never signed any confidentiality agreement that was presented to him on Wednesday.

In a series of Instagram video posts on Saturday, Nigel Pierce lashed out at the SABC's Good Hope FM management.

View this post on Instagram

The Radio Police. Access denied at SABC. Handed a letter in foyer in front of other staff. Not in an office behind closed doors. Listen

A post shared by The Radio Police (@nigelpierce) on Mar 9, 2019 at 12:03am PST

"Wednesday morning at 10 I went in for contract negotiations. I was told my contract would not be renewed. It had been renewed for 15 years, so there's a high expectation of permanency within that particular environment."

"I went on air at 5 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon; told listeners my last show would be 29 March 2019. I again told them on Thursday; nothing malicious. On Friday I got a note, in the foyer of the SABC, saying my services are no longer required for the remainder of my contract."

"I was also locked out of the studio - access denied - I was not told that my access was denied when I reported for duty on Friday afternoon. Sad. Very, very sad," explained Nigel Pierce.

"I do have a few questions for Good Hope FM. How can I be in so-called breach of contract if I didn't sign the confidential letter, and why did Good Hope FM allow me on air when I told them before the meeting on Wednesday that I would not be signing the so-called confidentiality letter?" asked Nigel Pierce in another video.

"When I was moved to the afternoon show, we showed double-digit growth," says Nigel Pierce.

"Did a staff member, or staff members at Good Hope FM have a hand in my dismissal?"

Nigel Pierce alleges that it was claimed that he only gave 10% to his Radio Police show after being moved from the morning to the afternoon and that he was called "a risk to the brand".

Nigel Pierce further alleges that he was often belittled in front of team members during meetings and that it was "no wonder team members started chastising me and denigrating me on the air".

Nigel Pierce also alleges that there were often "veiled threats" which he asked Good Hope FM management to stop doing - of being removed from the show or being moved to other timeslots on the SABC station.

Planning meetings at Good Hope FM were allegedly often haphazard with no agenda and no pre-planning, says Nigel Pierce.

SHOCKER: Almost a THIRD of the SABC's outside broadcast trucks are not usable - need to be upgraded but out-of-cash broadcaster isn't able to.

Shockingly, almost a third of the cash-strapped and beleaguered SABC's outside broadcast trucks - called "OB vans" in the TV biz - are not usable, the public broadcaster has revealed.

"There are crucial issues about people who are producing content for us, sport broadcasts that we are mandated to carry by the Broadcasting Act which we are scaling down because we don't have the money," Mathatha Tsedu, deputy chairperson of the SABC interim board said in an interview.

Mathatha Tsedu revealed in an interview on SABC2's Morning Live that "our OB trucks, almost a third of them are not usable. We need to upgrade them; we can't do that."

"So the board has taken a decision that we're only going to do those things that are necessary for us to do."

Six years after rife mismanagement, corruption and mismanagement brought the SABC to the brink of financial collapse in 2009 that saw the SABC thrown a R1.47 billion bailout lifeline from the government with stringent rules attached - 6 of which the SABC failed to adhere to - the financially under water SABC is once again in dire need of yet another government bailout. 

Communications minister Ayanda Dlodlo continues to refuse to tell the South African public what the mega-amount bailout is that the South African public broadcaster has requested from Treasury this time to keep the struggling South African public broadcaster afloat that is falling further and further into the red.

After shocking mismanagement and maladministration, the SABC is in dire need of a cash splash in order to pay millions of rand in arrears and back payments due to a range of creditors from content producers and the signal distributor Sentech to others.

"There are appointments, there are unprocedural bonuses that people were paid - some in millions, some in thousands - there are a whole host of irregular things that contributed to the R5.1 billion over five years of irregular expenditure," said Mathatha Tsedu.

"A whole host of production companies that keeps shows going, that give us content, we haven't even been able to pay them because there isn't money. Every month it's really a process of negotiating with this producer and giving them half and see whether mid-month you're going to give them the balance."

"There's just so much money that is owed to people who have already done work for the SABC - work for which they should have been paid by now which we haven't been able to do because there is no money," said Mathata Tsedu.

SABC MultiChoice channels deal an 'onion'

Regarding the highly controversial SABC MultiChoice deal, Mathatha Tsedu said "it's an onion that will have to be peeled one layer at a time".

In the controversial deal, the SABC supplies the SABC News (DStv 404) and SABC Encore (DStv 156) channels to MultiChoice DStv satellite pay-TV platform. 

It saw the now-fired controversial chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng pocket a R11.4 million bonus just for signing the contract. 

Questions have also been raised about how the controversial deal links with South Africa's digital terrestrial television (DTT) migration and the issue of set-top box (STB) control, as well as who is in control of the SABC archives. The SABC told parliament that MultiChoice's doesn't control its archive, but said that it is sending "a tape a day" to MultiChoice.

"We are keen as the SABC interim board to see SABC News as a TV news channel continuing, to see SABC Encore continuing."

"Insofar as we are concerned, we would want these SABC channels to continue."

Some SABC stations badly affected by 80% local quota

On Hlaudi Motsoeneng's unilateral and destructive "90% local content" for SABC radio and "80% local content" for SABC3 introduced in mid-2016, Mathatha Tsedu said "the issue has never been about whether it is good or bad to have more local content."

"It is the manner in which the decision was implemented across all platforms without consideration on how it was affecting some platforms.And it's not all platforms. The African language stations were not affected, they were already playing in that zone."

"But stations like Metro FM on some days - especially Sundays - were heavily affected. 5FM, Good Hope FM, Lotus FM - they were badly affected," said Mathatha Tsedu.

He said SABC platforms badly affected by the decision have been given the right to "correct the process that has been bleeding them".

"SABC stations have lost audiences and as a result they have lost revenue. That is an undeniable fact."

"Similarly with television. SABC1 is okay. SABC2 is not badly affected but SABC3 is."

SABC TV licence fees dip because of bad news

While the SABC on basically a daily basis remains in the news headlines for the wrong reasons, Mathatha Tsedu said "every time there is a cycle of bad news around the SABC, the revenues from the SABC TV licences dip."

"How do you get credibility back into the products that the SABC produces? The credibility of the SABC is not just judged by how Muvhango's story line is going or how 7de Laan's story line is going. The major credibility point of the SABC is its news output."

"The editorial code is now going out for public comment," he said, noting that the SABC is starting a series of workshops for SABC journalists to re-educate themselves on how news at a proper public broadcaster should be done.

The series of workshops will involve all the journalists of the SABC from across South Africa. "We're bringing in experts from different broadcast houses - including the BBC and other journalists - to just start talking about what is it that a public broadcast journalist should be doing and not doing."

"SABC journalists should now feel free to do the things that they have been trained to do and ignore all the things that are not journalistically defensible that they have been told to do."

"If anybody pushes anything on any SABC journalist that is unethical, the SABC board is there as a sounding board, they can come to the board and say 'I'm being forced to do something that is unethical', and we will deal with whoever that person is," said Mathatha Tsedu.

SABC viewership plunges to 'the lowest on record' - TV audience down to 45% while DStv grows; SABC radio listenership marks 'significant declines'.

The SABC's TV viewership keeps plunging and has now dropped to a disastrous 45% audience share - its "lowest on record" - while SABC radio station listenership also nosedived following the badly implemented 90% local content decree of its controversial former chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

While the viewership of SABC2 and SABC3 have been tanking over several months since mid-2016, even the stalwart SABC1 is now being affected and its viewership sliding, with overall SABC TV audiences that have slipped to just 45% in the last quarter.

The SABC's falling viewership and radio listenership comes in the wake of the disastrous implementation of Hlaudi Motsoeneng's 90% local content decree in June 2016 that's drained the public broadcaster's production coffers and saw viewers and listeners, and then also advertisers flee.

According to the SABC's latest group operations business review document of 22 March, the SABC's plummeting TV audience share has now hit "the lowest on record".

Business Day on Friday first reported about the latest business review document.

The SABC's ongoing audiences losses is however MultiChoice's gain, with the SABC ironically supplying TV channels like SABC News and SABC Encore to DStv.

The SABC's internal research notes that while SABC audience share fell to its lowest level ever in the last quarter, that MultiChoice's audience share for DStv has climbed from 25% to 28% - "its highest on record".

Meanwhile the SABC keeps revising its TV audience share target downwards, but the 45% is even lower than the downgraded 51% it wants to try and meet.

It's not just the SABC's three terrestrial TV channels that's struggling - the SABC's radio stations are hemorrhaging as well.

The SABC's predominantly English language radio stations - Metro FM, Good Hope FM and even Radio 2000 - saw "significant declines" since mid-2016 when Hlaudi Motsoeneng's abrupt content policy change was enforced.

In the 9 months since the change the SABC hasn't done any qualitative market research, with the report now suggesting that "qualitative research needs to be executed across different radio stations to test the effects of the 90% local music implementation".

SABC radio listeners from RSG to Lotus FM and Lesedi FM have been vocal in their dislike of how language and culture specific radio stations have been forced to play music falling outside of the market demographic of the consumers that specific SABC radio stations are supposed to be catering for.

The SABC's radio audience in the last quarter is now down to 71% according to the business review document.

On Thursday angry and fearful SABC staffers openly slammed SABC management as "inept and ignorant", asking executives point blank "if there's money" as the SABC's cash reserves are plummeting with another financial crisis looming for the broadcaster.

SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago on Friday didn't immediately respond to a media enquiry seeking comment about the first quarter audience share reports.

Broadcasting regulator slaps SABC radio stations with thousands of rands in fines for breaking election broadcasting regulations.

South Africa's broadcasting regulator has fined several SABC radio stations with thousands of rands over non-compliance and for breaking the election broadcasting regulations.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) fined several of the struggling public broadcasters's radio stations with fines with stations that will also have to broadcast apologies daily to listeners.

Icasa found that the SABC's radio stations failed to adhere to the municipal elections regulations during the election broadcast period.

The SABC's Afrikaans radio station RSG is fined R50 000 (of which R35 000 is suspended for three years).

Metro FM has been fined R5 000 with an apology to be broadcast once a day for five consecutive days.

Ligwalagwala FM has been fined R5 000 and must broadcast an apology once a day for five consecutive days.

Good Hope FM also erred but the radio station was not found negligent. Ukhozi FM was fined R5 000 and ordered to broadcast an apology once a day for five consecutive days.

Meanwhile the SABC has so far failed to provide Icasa with any undertaking that it has changed its policy of censoring scenes of property destruction in its TV news coverage, risking its broadcasting licence.                                                               

MultiChoice adds 18 SABC radio channels to DStv's audio package, several regional SABC radio stations available nationally for the first time.

MultiChoice today added 18 of the SABC's radio stations to DStv's audio package which makes these several of these regional radio stations available nationally across South Africa for the first time.

The SABC radio stations, ranging from 5FM, SAfm, Ukhozi Fm, Umhlobo Wenene, Lesedi FM, Lotus FM and Good Hope FM will now be accessible to DStv Premium, DStv Extra, DStv Compact, DStv Family, DStv Access and DStv EasyView subscribers.

The full list of SABC radio stations and their channel numbers added to DStv are:
Metro FM (901)
Channel Africa (902)
Good Hope FM (903)
Ikwekwezi (904)
5FM (905)
Lesedi FM (906)
Ligwalagwala (907)
Lotus FM (908)
Motsweding FM (909)
Munghana Lonene FM (910)
Phalaphala FM (911)
Radio 2000 (912)
RSG (913)
SAfm (914)
Thobela FM (915)
Tru FM (916)
Ukhozi FM (917)
Umhlobo Wenene FM (918)
X-K FM (919)