TV CRITIC's NOTEBOOK: The SABC is giving me just 5 days to pay for the renewal of my SABC TV Licence, says it doesn't have to give consumers 30 days notice.

Thinus Ferreira

The SABC is giving me just 5 days to pay for the renewal of my annual SABC TV Licence - before adding monthly late payment fees - with the South African public broadcaster saying it doesn't have to give anyone 30 days notice that their TV licence must be paid.

With less than 24% of the TV households that the SABC are aware of, still bothering to pay a SABC TV Licence, the public broadcaster's approach to its public broadcasting "customers" leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to making TV Licence holders pay, or want to pay to renew these. 

At 14:00 on Thursday 26 August the SABC emailed me, for the first time this year, a SABC TV Licence renewal notice demanding another annual payment of R265 for the next year before the end of the month.

That leaves just 5 days to pay before getting slapped with additional late fee penalities if any payment occurs after 31 August.

The SABC notes in its email that "TV licence fees are payable in advance therefore your account needs to be renewed by no later than 31 August 2021. The amount payable on or before this date is R265".

"Pay yours and made a difference," says the renewal notice that doesn't contain any invoice but just a statement of the previous year's payment and the next amount suddenly due. 

The SABC doesn't send other emails to consumers or use the SABC TV Licence email database to communicate other messages during the rest of the year, for instance around its content or how licence money was spent, that would make licence-payers more amenable to pay their annual fee when the time comes.

I asked the SABC in a media query why it sends a SABC TV Licence renewal notice with just 5 days to pay, and why a consumer isn't entitled to an invoice, issued to a consumer at least 30 days ahead of the date that payment is requested and why the SABC is not doing and adhering to this.

Gugu Ntuli, the SABC's group executive for corporate affairs and marketing, says that the SABC doesn't need to give anyone 30 days notice to pay a SABC TV Licence.

"The SABC takes into account key regulations when the corporation issues the renewal notices to customers. Regulation 24 of the TV Licence regulations published in the Government Gazette No 25959 of 28 January 2004 requires the SABC to send renewal notices to licence holders."

"It must be noted that the TV Licence legislation does not prescribe the 30-days notice as purported. Secondly, regulation 17 of the TV Licence regulations stipulate that all TV Licence fees are payable in advance. Paragraph 4 of the renewal notice to the client states that the licence holders licensing year commences on 1 September 2021."

"This means the TV Licence expires on 31 August 2021 and new licensing cycle starts on 1 September hence payment should be made by 31 August 2021". 

'DStv should collect on our behalf'

Earlier this year Yolande van Biljon, SABC CFO, told parliament that the SABC sits with a massive 76% SABC TV Licence "evasion rate", meaning that 76% of South African TV households that the public broadcaster are aware of and send a SABC TV Licence bill to, do not bother to pay their annual licence fee. 

Only 24% are still paying with the rate that keeps declining as the country's overall TV watching universe expands. 

Besides the SABC's TV Licence database there are millions more South African TV households with one or more TV sets that the SABC is not aware of and that don't have licences. 

The SABC wants legislation to be changed to force private commercial companies within the broadcasting sector, like MultiChoice and StarTimes who have kept their subscribers' details up to date, to add on SABC TV Licence fees to consumers' bills and to collect licence fees on the SABC's behalf.

MultiChoice as a private pay-TV operator is vehemently against the plan and says it will never do this or allow it to happen.

Calvo Mawela, MultiChoice Group CEO, earlier this year said that MultiChoice "can't be collecting for the SABC".

"Our position is simply very clear: We can't be held responsible for collecting money on behalf of the SABC. The SABC itself needs to find a way to collect such monies."

Earlier this month, SABC chairperson Bongumusa Makhathini told the Media & Society show on SABC News (DStv 404) that "the dominant pay-TV providers should collect on behalf of the SABC because they've got systems - they've got 8.2 million households in their system so they can really assist us".

"Why they should help is because the current regulatory framework has benefitted them at the expense of the public broadcaster. So it's one way of really redress and addressing the imbalances and how they've benefitted unfairly; they must help us collect that levy."

South African public broadcaster does a cobbled-together 'official' launch of SABC Sport as a TV channel complete with wooden benches on astro turf; says free sports could help drive digital migration push to DTT.

by Thinus Ferreira

On Thursday night the South African public broadcaster suddenly announced that it is "officially" launching its 24-hour SABC Sport channel at an amateur-looking launch event at its Auckland Park headquarters where a scattering of socially-distanced guests sat on wooden benches and astro turf.

Thursday night's "official" launch comes after SABC Sport had already been broadcasting "unofficially" for a while on eMedia Investments' Openview satellite TV platform and the SABC's digital terrestrial television (DTT) offering.

SABC Sport launched on 15 April 2021. On Thursday afternoon at 14:30 the SABC suddenly said in a belated statement that the public broadcaster would be "hosting a live broadcast of the official launch of its sports channel" at 19:00 on Thursday.

With little warning to media about it except for a few selected "outlets" as SABC chairman Bongumusa Makhathini referred to them, the SABC on Thursday night held an in-person "launch event" that it didn't bother to tell the majority of media about - similar to when it launched its latest version of the SABC News channel.

Neither the SABC's corporate affairs division under Gugu Ntuli, nor SABC Sport, afterwards issued any press release, press pack, basic channel logo, scheduling or anchor information, or any press release about what was said at the "official" launch event of the SABC Sport channel that a lot of media by Friday afternoon simply ignored.  

At the SABC's hagiographic SABC Sport official launch event on Thursday night some socially-distanced attendees sat on wooden benches on green astro turf and were served snacks by wandering waiters while presenters Vaylen Kirtley, Thomas Mlambo and Owen Hannie spoke from a stage.

SABC Sport has been available already on the SABC's DTT service, through e.tv's Openview decoder on channel 124, as well as on Telkom's TelkomONE video streaming service. 

SABC Sport is notably absent from MultiChoice's DStv and from StarTimes' StarSat satellite pay-TV services, with the SABC that wants to create and build its own televised sports channel brand similar to MultiChoice's long-running SuperSport brand.

Thursday night's "official" announcement tele-launch also included the announcement of the second team squad for the controversial Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games that is forging ahead despite intense criticism given the global Covid-19 pandemic and the rampant ongoing spread of the virus in Japan. 

Other upcoming content on the SABC Sport channel besides the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games would feature friendly matches of South Africa's football team Bafana Bafana, as well as Premier Soccer League (PSL) games, the Confederation Cup, the Carling Black Label Cup, Formula E, the French Top 14, and also boxing matches and South African cricket, athletics and tennis.

"With the analogue switch-off planned for April 2022, the SABC believes that free sports content could be a significant driver in the final push for digital migration to DTT and satellite," Bongumusa Makhathini said.

"SABC Sport is a centre-piece in the SABC turn-around and renewal," he said.

Gary Rathbone, SABC Sport general manager, said that "Since the channel became operational in April this year, its audience figures have been positive, with latest TAMS figure showing a total reach of over 2 million, a 5% share of the national television market".

"On Openview alone, the channel has established itself amongst the top 10 on the bouquet, with a total reach of over 1.4 million, representing a 24% share of the Openview market. This is really positive start for an exciting new Sport channel that South Africans will be able to access without needing to pay a subscription."

Gary Rathbone said that SABC Sport will try to have broad sports content in order to speak to as many sports fans as possible.

"There also needs to be a mix between international content and local content," he said. He said SABC Sport is working on broadcasting "kasi-sports, school sports, women sports".

About the ongoing and latest fight with MultiChoice and SuperSport around the sub-licensing of sports content, for instance the SABC that said it won't show the upcoming Springboks and Lions rugby tour, Gary Rathbone told Vaylen Kirtley that "more should be done to help facilitate that access to that content on our platforms".

"We're not looking to try and acquire it in some sort of way and undervalue it in terms of the people that do put the money in, the hard-earned money, but there is ways and means to make it shareable, to make it accessible, to make it equitable in a way that helps us to grow out brand, helps us to commercialise the business that we're in and go out and buy better content and make better programmes."

A fawning Thomas Mlambo "interviewed" Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, South Africa's minister of communications and digital technologies who bloomed under the studio lights as a wannabe TV presenter.

There was no semblance from Thomas Mlambo of even trying to ask kind of pertinent questions to Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams about the delay with DTT and the damage it's causing to the broadcaster, the SABC's struggle with sports rights and ongoing lack of government funding to pay for it, or her department's failures in helping the broadcaster with solving sport content issues.

After its retrenchment process South Africa's public broadcaster now has just 1 single publicist responsible for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 as media warns: 'Black holes coming where SABC content used to be and got exposure'.

by Thinus Ferreira

Following its restructuring and acrimonious retrenchment process the SABC has now appointed and allocated just a single publicist responsible for liaising with media and who must do publicity for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 combined.

Meanwhile members of South Africa's media maintain their stance from months ago and who warned that it won't be practically workable, again saying that the new "structure" is going to inflict massive damage on the broadcaster's overall aim of maintaining and growing exposure for its TV programming going forward.

As part of its retrenchment process in which 621 staffers lost their jobs at the South African public broadcaster at the end of March, the SABC tore up its decades-old structure for publicity and marketing of its TV content and unilaterally swept away its entire existing corps of allocated publicists working at SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

In several cases, as longtime SABC publicists exited at the end of March, so did their specialised media contact lists as well as their established network connections with media and transactional relationships and influence.

According to SABC insiders, one chosen publicist from SABC1 who would have been kept on, declined the job and she moved elsewhere.

The public broadcaster has now appointed Caroline Phalakatshela to handle all media enquiries and the entire publicity portfolio for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 with her job title that is now PR specialist.

Caroline Phalakatshela, a longtime SABC2 publicist, has now been saddled with the basically impossible task of doing publicity work and handling all media enquiries, schedules, programming information, updates, publicity photography, show synopses and press kits for all of the programming on SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

This includes the entire collection of locally-produced TV soaps and telenovelas across all 3 channels - 7 in all.

SABC brand managers will also be expected to help with publicity, although their job is to look after each channel's brand management and brand campaign executions.

It's not clear how Gugu Ntuli, who heads up the SABC's corporate communications division, or Merlin Naicker, the SABC's latest head of SABC Television, decided that just one specialist publicist for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 is workable, practical, or doable, or how just one publicist is adequate for this gargantuan task.

The SABC decided that the jobs of individual publicists for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 are redundant and their jobs were all scrapped in the structure proposed and devised by Gugu Ntuli and Merlin Naicker. 

For decades the SABC has had specialised and allocated publicists working on SABC1 and that channel's properties, for SABC2 and its content, and for SABC3 and that channel's shows.

Over the past decades, all three channels at times outsourced and appointed external PR companies to rep the channels in addition to the permanent channel-allocated SABC publicists. 

Over decades various PR companies have also been paid to work on specific soaps, or shows for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 and helped with organising quarterly previews and press screening events when the SABC still bothered to preview content to the media and advertisers.

The SABC channels over the years all employed at least two or more publicists for the workload, with divisions headed up by a publicity managers well - except for SABC3 that in the end made do with just a single publicist who now also lost her job.

Now Caroline Phalakatshela - as well as brand managers who might as well balk at the added publicity responsibilities suddenly folded into their new job descriptions - are responsible for what a lot more people did until now.

In December TVwithThinus asked the SABC why it wants to completely axe all publicists at all of its TV channels and why the SABC no longer sees this crucial job as important.

Gugu Ntuli said that "The current processes underway are exploring all options and I'm very certain that whatever has been tabled will be duly considered and the right structures will come into effect".

South Africa's media, who depends on SABC publicists as the go-between for interviews, media enquiries and the latest programming information, however disagrees that "the right structures" are now in effect.

After media previously described what's going to happen and what has now, in fact, happend as a "wholesale burndown", the South African press continue to say that the SABC has been extremely "short-sighted" and "arrogantly clueless" to get rid of all SABC TV channels' publicists in its retrenchment plan.

"Don't know what Gugu's thinking. We got no communication [before], or even now as to what's happening or how things are changing. I suppose just less SABC stuff going on the pages. We already get so little," an editor told TVwithThinus this week, whose publication includes SABC programming and TV listing and who relies on publicists to "send us stuff and to know who to send it to by what deadlines".

A longtime senior publicist working at a PR company with decades-long experience with how the SABC's PR divisions used to operate said about the axing of the swathe of PR people at the SABC that "this was a big mistake".

"It doesn't seem as if the people responsible for it had the remotest of ideas what the PR programming function entails, why its crucial or what these people actually really did".

"It's thankless and often-unseen work but you only start to notice it when it's gone and these gaping black holes appear where your content used to be and got exposure," said the person.

This person also warned: "Competitors and competing brands with the SABC and their shows are all too happy to flood in to fill the void andto  take up the space in the media attention that media gave to them [SABC]".

Another independent publicist weighed in and said about the SABC's move: "It seems non-sensical but a lot that's been happening at the SABC over many years just don't make logical sense."

"They just tried to save money by letting of people. But they don't seem to understand what the term 'earned media' means or maybe never google-ed it to understand about the value of the hundreds of thousands of rands that the SABC gets in brand awareness, when something about a SABC show appears in ex-SABC media. It's something that far outweighs publicists' salaries."

"That article or clip in a newspaper or online, or that soundbyte or show listing about any SABC programming is worth gold and they don't seem to understand that publicists at their channels are the worker ants pushing that to the media."

"Now media will rely even more on what they receive from e.tv or MultiChoice from their DStv channels and stuff if they don't get what they need in time from the SABC."

ALSO READ: 'Wholesale burndown': Concerns growing over the South African public broadcaster's 'quite short-sighted' and 'arrogantly clueless' plan to get rid of all SABC TV channels' publicists in its retrenchment plan.

ALSO READ: SABC retrenchment plan to eliminate the broadcaster's corps of TV channel publicists who communicate about its content, job to be centralised under a marketing manager and few brand managers.

Financially struggling SABC blows R2.3 million on public relations agency PR Worx in a new contract to try and repair the broadcaster's image as it duplicates SABC communications boss Gugu Ntuli's existing internal team that doesn't have all the skills and resources.

by Thinus Ferreira

South Africa's struggling public broadcaster that wants to retrench workers because of its absolute dire financial situation has splurged a shocking R2.3 million to pay the public relations agency PR Worx to clean up the SABC's dented image and damaged reputation, although the broadcaster internally has a fully-functioning corporate communications division and team.

According to South Africa's government, the SABC appointed PR Worx because the broadcaster's internal corporate communications team doesn't have all of the needed skills and resources.

Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, South Africa's minister of communications and digital technologies, revealed that the cash-strapped SABC signed a new contract in July for R2.3 million with PR Worx for a year for so-called reputation management.

The IFP member of parliament Liezl van der Merwe why the SABC why it deemed it necessary to hire a PR company to do work for the SABC considering that the SABC does have an internal PR component and personnel.

Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams in a written reply answered that the SABC appointed PR Worx to "further add to the SABC's turnaround strategy, addressing and better managing its reputation and corporate image [that] is a priority for the broadcaster".

"The SABC therefore sought a suitably qualified and competent firm as the reputation management, corporate image building, and market research services that the SABC required were not available from an internal skill set and resource perspective," Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams said.

"All due diligence was performed and only when the SABC was satisfied that it had found a suitable service provider that understood the scope of work, and possessed the necessary experience to effectively execute the stipulated reputation mandate, was the contract awarded on 29 June 2020."

"The SABC then entered into an agreement with PR Worx as the agency of choice on 2 July 2020 for a 12-month period."

The SABC has a corporate communications division headed up by Gugu Ntuli, who got paid R767 000 according to the SABC's latest 2019/2020 financial report since her appointment from December 2019 as the SABC's group executive for corporate affairs and marketing.

Meanwhile, the SABC plans to retrench and wants to get rid of the entire group of programming publicists at its SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 TV channels responsible for issuing schedules, publicity photography and programming updates to the country's press and to communicate with media.

It's not clear how the SABC plans to liaise with media about its TV shows without any publicists who all received retrenchment letters last month.

Last week, TVwithThinus asked the SABC why it wants to completely axe all publicists at all of its TV channels and why the SABC no longer sees this crucial job as important.

Gugu Ntuli said that "The current processes underway are exploring all options and I'm very certain that whatever has been tabled will be duly considered and the right structures will come into effect".

According to SABC insiders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Merlin Naicker, the SABC's latest head of SABC Television, apparently wants "publicity" and marketing for all of the SABC's individual TV channels to shift to reside inside the corporate communications team headed up by Gugu Ntuli.

The understanding is that there would only be 2 media relations positions and a general, so-called "communications manager" or a job description to that effect.

It means that the SABC's corporate communications team would be made responsible for corporate communications, as well as SABC TV channels publicity and programming communication, that would all be done by just 3 or maximum 4 people.

ALSO READ: 'Wholesale burndown': Concerns growing over the South African public broadcaster's 'quite short-sighted' and 'arrogantly clueless' plan to get rid of all SABC TV channels' publicists in its retrenchment plan.

ALSO READ: SABC retrenchment plan to eliminate the broadcaster's corps of TV channel publicists who communicate about its content, job to be centralised under a marketing manager and few brand managers.

'Wholesale burndown': Concerns growing over the South African public broadcaster's 'quite short-sighted' and 'arrogantly clueless' plan to get rid of all SABC TV channels' publicists in its retrenchment plan.

by Thinus Ferreira

Concerns are growing inside the SABC, as well as with media outside, about the South African public broadcaster's apparently "quite short-sighted", "wholly misguided" and uninformed plan - labelled a "wholesale burndown" - to get rid of all publicists across all of the SABC's TV channels as part of its latest retrenchment plan. 

Multiple of the institution's divisions and enterprises across the entire SABC have been affected by the section 189 process to downsize the over-staffed SABC's personnel costs, with some like SABC News that quickly itself became the news last month when redundancy notices were handed out.

While the South African public and media last month saw SABC News anchor and reporter Chriselda Lewis chastise apparently clueless and uninformed SABC top execs like COO Ian Plaatjes in videos that quickly went viral, many more SABC staffers in many other divisions are extremely unhappy as well.

While they are dealing with the same issues, they haven't spoken out about their plight, trying to keep up a dignified front despite tears, anxiety and fear about their futures behind-the-scenes.

According to sources, these staffers - from SABC Radio to commercial enterprises and many other divisions - are bearing the brunt of over-zealous bosses who are "cutting down to make numbers".

At the SABC's Northern Cape-based radio station, XKFM, all 11 staffers for instance got retrenchment letters, with staff openly wondering how the broadcaster will possibly be able to continue to broadcast in the !Xu and !Khwe San languages if they're all gone.

On top of so-described "cold retrenchment letters", rank-and-file SABC staffers are now dealing with their own fears, resentment and anger, as well as what they claim is top executives and their line managers' alleged uninformed cookie-cutter approach to "cutting down numbers on spreadsheets" in various divisions simply to "reach the desired headcount".

Staffers say that instead of knowing what workers are really doing, finding out what their real job descriptions entail and listening as to why certain jobs are actually essential to the SABC, "we're willy-nilly put in the expendable category so they [managers] can keep their jobs safe".

One such "division" facing complete annihilation within the SABC's broad-based retrenchment plan is the SABC's coterie of publicists - the PR people at SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3.

These SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 publicists are the ones who deal with media enquiries about programming, issue schedules and programming highlights and updates, write and send out the press releases about programmes, and who liaise with media about interviews with talent.

They handle stills and photo request ("high res please") and is the first port of call and often the stopgap frontline receivers of the unending barrage of media requests that neither programming managers at the SABC's TV channels nor anybody else wants to directly deal with.

Inexplicably, the SABC has given all of these publicists their marching orders.

The move has caused the media at newspapers, magazines and online media who depend on publicists as the go-between, to openly wonder who is actually going to do the work and take over the thankless task of dealing with the myriad of important, and less important, media enquiries that constantly stream in and that would quickly overwhelm the SABC's corporate affairs communications team.

Instead of axing all of its programming publicists at the SABC, the broadcaster in fact needs to have and do much, much more in this field.

Over just the past 5 years the SABC, ensconced in a seeming isolated bubble of its own, has been vastly outstripped and outpaced when it comes to the issuing of programming highlights, the availability of basic publicity material for shows, press events, season-related photography and proper media engagement and liaison.

The SABC doesn't even have a press portal where media can log in to download imagery, episode synopsis, schedules, logos or related press materials that have all become a basic de facto must for international and other TV channels, as well as streaming services like Netflix.

Long-forgotten at the SABC are set visits, while competing TV channels fill journalists' diaries with real-world, on-set junkets, and during 2020, with a never-ending stream of local and international virtual media engagement and set visits.

While local and global TV channels as well as streamers soak up the available attention and time and inundate journalists' inboxes with links to digital screeners of new and upcoming programming and series in order for them to watch and review shows before broadcast, the SABC does nothing.

As video streaming services like Netflix SA, Showmax, Amazon Prime Video and others started to flourish in South Africa - alongside pay-TV channels from BBC Studios to NBCUniversal, HBO and many others that are repping directly into South Africa with their overseas PR teams or have appointed dedicated locally-based PR companies - the SABC keeps fallen further and further behind when it comes to putting actual resources behind programming publicity for SABC1, SABC2, SABC3 and SABC News.

The public broadcaster has failed and not kept pace with bolstering, building out and smart-tuning its various TV channel publicity teams or strategies with its severely eroded group of publicists - in number the smallest they have ever been in 2 decades since the glory days of Suzette Pretorius - currently overseen by Zandile Nkonyeni as head of PR for SABC TV channels.

Quarterly press previews for SABC1, SABC2 and SABC3 that used to be de rigueur for years have all but disappeared half a decade ago with SABC3 that used to be the lone holdout of a once proud and effective media engagement tradition until that channel also folded the informative practice.

Meanwhile, SABC3 is down to just one publicist for an entire channel, SABC1 struggles with juniorisation of staff where publicity materials are often late, irrelevant or mistake-filled and where just 2 publicists try to answer media requests of the SABC's biggest TV channel; while SABC2 publicists would be told external PR companies are handling certain properties who would then fail to deliver or to actually properly liaise with media.

According to SABC insiders - people with knowledge of some of the plans and sentiments expressed inside the SABC but who are not directly involved and who are speaking on condition of anonymity - Merlin Naicker, the SABC's latest head of SABC Television, apparently wants "publicity" and marketing for all of the SABC's individual TV channels to shift to reside inside the corporate communications team headed up by Gugu Ntuli, the SABC's head of corporate affairs and marketing.

Here, other insiders who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told TVwithThinus that there is "in a bizarre way no place" for any of the existing publicists at SABC1, SABC2 or SABC3 within the envisioned structure.

While none of these publicists have been approached or asked about this for this report, the understanding is that there would only be 2 media relations positions and a general, so-called "communications manager" or a job description to that effect, in Gugu Ntuli's proposed restructured division.

This makes it extremely unlikely that any of the SABC1, SABC2 or SABC3 publicists currently on "death-row" have any realistic chance of being kept on post the SABC's retrenchment process. 

It also makes it extremely unlikely that the SABC in-house will be able to do any kind of half-decent programming publicity effort for these channels' content - something that the SABC is already struggling to do properly because of a lack of staff and resources.

Outsourcing it to one or more external PR companies would mean hat publicists with no history or knowledge of brands or shows would be in charge, and likely also cost more to drum up earned media exposure for SABC shows - again defeating the purpose of a retrenchment exercise.

Ironically while the SABC needs to do much more publicity for its TV channels and their content line-ups, it is deliberately choosing to downsize a crucial job within the broadcaster to less.

"It's quite short-sighted" and "wholly misguided" said one source, with another longtime executive who described it as "a wholesale burndown of the last of what is left of publicity for TV if you can still call it that, here".

The SABC this week on Tuesday held a virtual media engagement through Microsoft Teams to unveil a new "SABC Tours" video.

Afterwards, during the Q&A session, TVwithThinus posed a question and asked why the SABC is apparently fine to completely do away with publicists at all of its TV channels, why the SABC no longer considers the crucial job of TV channel publicist as important, and how the SABC thinks that it would be able to keep the press properly and effectively informed about what it is showing on television without actual programming publicists.

"The current processes underway are exploring all options and I'm very certain that whatever has been tabled will be duly considered and the right structures will come into effect," said Gugu Ntuli in response to the question.

ALSO READ: SABC retrenchment plan to eliminate the broadcaster's corps of TV channel publicists who communicate about its content, job to be centralised under a marketing manager and few brand managers.