SABC cancelled Special Assignment over ratings.

by Thinus Ferreira

The South African public broadcaster is finally confirming that it cancelled the long-running current affairs and investigative magazine programme Special Assignment on SABC3 in August over bad TV ratings because the show only managed to pull 103 000 viewers.

The public broadcaster has a public mandate to do news and current affairs TV programming, in all languages and regardless of viewership, with Special Assignment which was the SABC's sole current affairs magazine show in English and which got canned after 24 years without any replacement.

Co-incidentally, Special Assignment is the show that SABC top executives used as a scapegoat a few months before its broadcast axing, to oust the SABC's former head of news, Phathiswa Magopeni, who is now set to return to the SABC as one of the new board members.

After an episode of Special Assignment was broadcast while the story under investigation about South Africa's towtruck-industry was still under a court interdict, SABC execs blamed Phathiswa Magopeni and alleged during a disciplinary hearing that it was her fault and mistake that the episode was shown.

Special Assignment producers and staff defended Phathiswa Magopeni and blamed the SABC's archaic and byzantine content labelling system for the mistake.

Merlin Naicker, head of SABC video entertainment, told parliament this week that Special Assignment got canned because of lousy ratings. The SABC decided to dump the show before developing a replacement and four months after its abrupt removal there's been no new replacement. 

The SABC says it is working on coming up with a new show which will compete with M-Net's (DStv 101) Carte Blanche on a Sunday evening and e.tv's Checkpoint with Nkepile Mabuse and Devi fronted by Devi Sankaree Govender.

"Special Assignment achieved a 0.94 percentage share, or 103 000 viewers which is below the target that we've set ourselves as a channel," Merlin Naicker said.

"We will reduce content that is not delivering according to the standard or according to the target set and this is one of those that was not achieving. The show itself does not mean that it's a poor show. It means that it's not achieving the targets that we required."

"We are working with our news team to figure out a better current affairs show that can better service the market," he said.

ALSO READ: The SABC cans Special Assignment on SABC3 after 24 years with SABC News claiming 'loss of audience' as the cause of its cancellation.

The SABC cans Special Assignment on SABC3 after 24 years with SABC News claiming 'loss of audience' as the cause of its cancellation.

by Thinus Ferreira

The SABC has decided to cancel the public broadcaster's long-running weekly Special Assignment investigative magazine programme on SABC3 after 24 years, blaming low TV ratings, with the last episode which will be next Tuesday night 2 August.

Special Assignment's viewership drop on SABC3 is however not unique, with the whole of SABC3's programming schedule struggling extremely in the South African TV ratings race.

SABC3 is the SABC TV channel suffering the lowest ratings of the public broadcaster's three major TV channels, with SABC3 also being affected the most by the government and Sentech's switch-off of analogue TV signal transmitters in the switch to digital terrestrial television (DTT).

SABC3 and the SABC News division responsible for producing the show, moved Special Assignment across multiple days and timeslots over the last decade, constantly forcing potential audiences to try and find and adjust to new days and timeslots if they wanted to watch the show and often pre-empting episodes for sudden sport coverage and other broadcasts.

Special Assignment's timeslot will be replaced with a shortened version of the longer SABC News (DStv 404) channel's studio-based programme, It's Topical, while SABC News and SABC3 consider the option of a new investigative magazine show for the public broadcaster.

Special Assignment that started in August 1998 has been competing over decades in the investigative television journalism space with e.tv's 3rd Degree hosted by Debora Patta and later Checkpoint with Nkepile Mabuse, as well as Devi fronted by Devi Sankaree Govender also on e.tv and eNCA (DStv 403); and the long-running Carte Blanche on M-Net (DStv 101) from Combined Artistic Productions.

The SABC used the chaotic and disorganised behind-the-scenes drama surrounding the broadcast of an episode of Special Assignment on 14 September 2021 about the towtruck-industry which should still have been held back by the broadcaster following a court interdict, as evidence to get rid of the former SABC News boss Phathiswa Magopeni, arguing that she was responsible for not preventing the episode from being aired and negligent.

Special Assignment executive producer Busisiwe Ntuli who testified in Phathiswa Magopeni's disciplinary hearing, supported her, saying the mistake of airing the episode was not the news division or Special Assignment's fault but due to an issue with the original and replacement programme codes being similar which is the responsibility of the SABC's video entertainment department.

Phathiswa Magopeni said that the SABC used the Special Assignment issue to "hound" her out of the public broadcaster.

About Special Assignment's abrupt cancellation, Moshoeshoe Monare, SABC News boss, told staff in a letter that the show is now getting axed because Special Assignment "has lost its mojo and signature influence, with the consequential effects being loss of audience". 

It's not clear why the SABC and SABC News which has a public mandate to produce news, current affairs and investigative programming is citing low ratings as a reason for cancellation since the South Africa public broadcaster is compelled to do news and current affairs programming irrespective of the influences of commercial and financial pressure and ratings.

Ndindi Cola, SABC spokesperson, didn't respond to a media query made last week about the canning of Special Assignment and questions around it, including what will be happening to staff who have been working on the show.

AXED. As part of its controversial restructuring SABC top execs scrap SABC News TV current affairs shows on SABC2 like Zwa Maramani in Tshivenda and Ngula ya Vutivi in Xitsonga.

by Thinus Ferreira

In their "secretive" restructuring plan of the financially struggling South African public broadcaster the SABC's top executives have decided to do away and axe SABC News current affairs shows like Zwa Maramani in Tshivenda and Ngula ya Vutivi in Xitsonga on SABC2.

The culling of Zwa Maramani and Ngula ya Vutivi forms part of broad swathes of content, programming and staff getting axed and reorganised into a new structure at the embattled SABC that just made another R511 million loss for the 2019/2020 financial year and that is on track to make a massive R1.2 billion loss.

SABC staffers say the new structure of which they haven't properly been informed of, is undoable and unworkable with the number of people left, with SABC executives who want to retrench 400 workers. 

At the SABC radio division, multiple radio stations have seen the majority of staff receive retrenchment letters, for instance leaving only 2 people at the Afrikaans radio station RSG not getting letters including the station manager Magdaleen Kruger and the secretary, 12 out of the 14 getting letters at Umhlobo Wenene FM in the Eastern Cape, and all but 4 people likely getting retrenched at Channel Africa that is the SABC's pan-African radio station.

The SABC is also axing as part of the 400 staffers the broadcaster's corps of TV channel publicists who communicate about its content with the jobs to be centralised under a marketing manager and at most 3 brand managers.

At a media briefing the Communication Workers Union (CWU) who are against the broadcaster's retrenchment plan, said that the SABC plans to completely scrap current affairs shows in indigenous languages like Tshivenda and Xitsonga.   

"This means that the SABC now has officially abandoned its core mandate as a public broadcaster in the heart of their corporate plan," said Aubrey Tshabalala, CWU secretary-general.

"In the TV SABC News division Zwa Maramani, which is Tshivenda, and Ngula ya Vutivi which is Xitsonga have been done away with. The reasons are purely based on commercial reasons."

"This is the serious reversal of all the gains made during a political breakthrough in 1994. This move is not in the interest of building a nation that is living in harmony, united in diversity."

Meanwhile SABC News TV current affairs shows in English, Afrikaans and Nguni will remain.

"The SABC has current affairs show that will remain - Fokus in Afrikaans on SABC2 with the same stuff, Cutting Edge in Nguni on SABC1 with the same stuff and Special Assignment in English on SABC3. They have been kept on-air in the new structure."

"It is important to indicate that this structure was not presented to the commissioner at the CCMA during the SABC's section 189 retrenchment processes."

ALSO READ: SABC COO claims SABC News newsroom has been ‘unlawfully captured’, says use of eNCA during blackout was just a joke while shocked staffers are speaking out about chillingly cold retrenchment letters telling them they're terminated.

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.

Special Assignment on SABC3 on Sunday at 9:30pm looking at how sick prisoners are struggling despite new medical parole laws that were supposed to make life better.

On Sunday the SABC's weekly Special Assignment investigative magazine show on SABC3 at 21:30 will look at how sick prisoners are struggling despite new medical parole laws introduced in 2012 that was supposed to make their circumstances better.

Sunday's episode of Special Assignment, produced by Adel van Niekerk, investigates why a sick prisoner with an easily treatable medical condition developed life-threatening health complications in prison.

In 2010, after allegedly struggling for almost a year to get proper medical treatment for painful hemorrhoids inside Johannesburg Prison’s Medium B-section, inmate Lungisa Livingstone Jadula says he was eventually sent to the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto where, he claims that without his knowledge or consent, a part of his colon was removed and the remainder left hanging outside of his body. 

The hospital has since admitted that they have lost his 2010 medical records.

After his surgery, Jadula was sent back to a communal prison cell where he has had to fight off deadly infections in an overcrowded, unsanitary environment. His lawyer, Austin Okeke, says it has been an uphill battle to get his client the on-going medical treatment he requires.

In 2012, Special Assignment produced two exposés on sick prisoners that, similar to the case of Jadula, revealed a critical breakdown in a working relationship between prisons and state hospitals. 

The implementation of new medical parole laws in 2012 was meant to smooth the road for sick inmates like Jadula, but prison and health authorities continue to shift the blame on to each other.

Medico-legal expert Adele van der Walt, says that prisoners, despite having their movements restricted, have the constitutional right to proper medical care. In light of this, Special Assignment asks who is responsible for the timeous and proper medical treatment of sick inmates.

Special Assignment on SABC3 on Sunday at 9:30pm looking at intersex people and how their rights are often violated.

The SABC's weekly investigative magazine show, Special Assignment, on Sunday at 21:30 on SABC3 will be looking at intersex people and how their rights are often violated.

"Intersex" is a general term for various manifestations of reproductive or sexual anatomy that do not fit the typical definitions of female or male and it is estimated that approximately one in 500 people in South Africa are born intersex and one in 1 500 worldwide.

Sunday's episode of Special Assignment was produced by Lindile Mpanza.

"There’s a lot of intersex conditions that don’t have abnormal genitalia or minimally abnormal genitalia at birth and only present later on when different parts of your body switch on at different times,” explains paediatric endocrinologist, Professor David Segal who features in the episode.

The rights of those born intersex are frequently violated with babies killed, abandoned or operated on to avoid the perceived shame on the family.

"When you are born intersex, with both genders there is nothing wrong with you," says Dimakatso Sebidi, who doctors operated on as a baby, to "normalise" the appearance of her genitals. She wishes things had been done differently.

Nthabiseng Mokoena was also born intersex but was not subjected to genital surgery. Nthabiseng urges parents to wait for intersex children to grow up before operating on them so that they can have a say about what happens to their bodies.

"When you are born as an intersex person, the fundamental rule that the medical fraternity tells you is that you are the only one, that’s why we need to fix you," says Dimakatso.

Special Assignment on Sunday on Monday 22 January at 9pm looking at 'The Balaclava Rapists' of Alexandra and their decade long rape reign of terror.

Special Assignment on SABC3 on Monday 22 January at 21:00 will look at "The Balaclava Rapists" in a story produced by Lindile Mpanza.

For years in South Africa's Alexandra township, girls as young as 14 years old, as well as women and couples, fell prey to two serial rapists hiding in balaclavas.

These men would rob, rape, kidnap and force couples to have sex with each other at gunpoint. Late last year, the men – Josias Xaniseka Mkansi and Sinja Robin Mabitsela - were sentenced to 14 life terms and 185 years, and 32 life sentences plus 270 years respectively, bringing their almost decade long reign of rape terror to an end.

In Monday's episode of Special Assignment the spotlight is placed on this painful chapter that the community of Alexandra has finally been able to close.

However, the men leave behind a trail of destruction where some victims have never been able to recover from their ordeal. The families of the two perpetrators are left in disbelief and cannot fathom who the rapists really were. 

The episode also focuses on the phenomenon of serial rape, its modus operandi and how the South African law deals with it.

M-Net's investigative magazine show, Carte Blanche, turns 27 years old today with a special 90 minute programme.

Carte Blanche on M-Net (DStv 101), the pay-TV broadcaster's long-running weekly investigative magazine show turns 27 years old today - a veritable dinosaur in television years, but not a timid Stego, rather a roaring T-Rex.

The Combined Artistic Productions show in its entrenched 19:00 timeslot on Sunday nights will tonight run until 20:30, a half hour longer with the Sunday night movie that will start at 20:30 instead of 20:00.

Tonight the actuality show will investigate why the South African government's ambitious nuclear building programme is shrouded in secrecy.

Carte Blanche also has a shocking expose and exclusive footage of a zama-zama (illegal miners) army pillaging North West mines, as well as a story about the billionaire Sidney Frankel accused of paedophilia. His alleged victims speak out - one publicly for the first time.

Carte Blanche also looks at why the office photocopying machine has become a serious cyber security threat and what the term "revenge porn" means.

Special Assignment on SABC3 at 20:30 looks at hate crimes committed against gay people and the violence and brutality experienced by lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders and intersex people, in an insert produced by Lindile Mpanza.

The episode examimes the problem of hate crimes in South Africa and asks what can be done to ensure that the victims of these hate crimes get justice.

SABC3's Special Assignment quietly stuck in ongoing repeats on Sundays at 21:30 as a 're-launch' is planned of the investigative magazine show.

Look no further than the sad, tragic and ongoing demise of "current" current affairs programming at the SABC than the SABC3 show Special Assignment which is quietly stuck in repeats.

Viewers have not been getting ongoing new content but instead a bunch of repeats, and tucked away in one of TV's graveyard slots on Sunday nights at 21:30.

Special Assignment has also been largely defanged from the investigative magazine show it used to be.

The SABC says Special Assignment will be back with new episodes, but there is no "launch date" for the show which the SABC says is "preparing for a re-launch".

"Viewers can continue to watch repeats of some of our best stories produced during 16 years of journalistic excellence. Special Assignment's seasoned team of intrepid journalists will soon be back, bringing you stories that fearlessly investigate, provoke and expose," says the show.

Current affairs shows Special Assignment and Interface on SABC3 swopping days and timeslots from October.

The days and timeslots of Special Assignment and Interface, the two current affairs programmes on SABC3 are swopping from October, with Interface moving from Sundays to Tuesdays, and Special Assignment moving from Thursdays to Sundays.

The studio interview show Interface will be moving from its later current Sunday night slot at 21:30 to earlier on Tuesdays at 20:00 from 1 October.

The longrunning Special Assignment currently on Thursdays at 21:30 is getting shunted to Sundays, still at 21:30, from 6 October.

Sources tell me both shows will continue with new episodes, although in new timeslots.

BREAKING. Church demands a public apology from SABC3's Special Assignment; church livid over visuals and 'irresponsible coverage'.

The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG) is demanding a public apology from SABC3 and the  TV channel's weekly investigative and current affairs programme, Special Assignment, after the church says it was "astonished" to see visuals of its churches included in a Special Assignment episode about illegal drug activities.

In this past Thursday's episode entitled "Praise the Drug lord" produced by Richelle Seton-Rogers, Special Assignment on SABC3 reported on informal churches and ministries popping up, loosely regulated, and with pastors being involved in drug dealing.

The programme looked a innocent people who "just want to attend a place of worship and who are being unwittingly pulled into the plots of criminal pastors."

"By association viewers would assume that as images of UCKG were included in the content, it was involved in the activities mentioned. This is completely false and wrongful!" says the UCKG in a strongly worded statement. The episode in question of Special Assignment was shown on SABC3 on Thursday 23 May.

The UCKG says "thousands of members were astonished to see visuals of two UCKG churches in a Special Assignment programme".

"The leadership of the church objects in the strongest terms to this inaccurate and irresponsible coverage which has damaged the reputation of the organisation and created untrue and incorrect impressions in the minds of millions of viewers," says the UCKG.

The UCKG demands a public apology "as a matter of urgency, failing which further action will be taken," says the church.

I've reached out to SABC3 to hear whether the broadcaster has any comment.

Programming note: Harrowing house demolitions in Lenasia in the spotlight in Thursday's Special Assignment on SABC3 at 21:30.

Special Assignment this Thursday at 21:00 on SABC3 promises shocking, must-watch television as the weekly investigative magazine show turn the spotlight on Lenasia, the suburb south of Johannesburg to show South Africa the full, harrowing story of residents standing helpless as their homes are demolished by bulldozers in front of their eyes.

While South Africa's government ironically says the houses are being demolished to help the poor because the homes were built illegally on government land, terrified residents say they've been duped by cash-for-land scammers who sold the land to them and provided what seemed like legitimate documentation.

The scams turned out to be wide-ranging syndicates that include officials from the housing department, Johannesburg Water and the City of Johannesburg.

Special Assignment takes South Africa inside the dramatic scenes affecting the entire world of people who are suddenly losing everything they have. Two hundred houses are on the government's hit list in the first phase of demolitions.

Even an urgent court application by the Human Rights Commission to temporarily halt the controversial demolitions, did nothing to stop bulldozers from demolishing further homes yesterday, shocking ordinary South Africans in a country still struggling with a desperate housing shortage.

Bulldozers once again rolled into a different section of Lenasia on Monday and continued with more demolitions leaving shocked residents with nowhere to go.

Special Assignment looks at South Africa's massive housing crisis and how it affects a section of society that doesn't qualify for RDP homes but also don't eearn enough to qualify for bonds to formally enter the property market. These working class families have now lost everything.

Special Assignment will expose how these scams even stretch into the rental market and how in one instance, a "landlord" has built 10 properties on government land and is renting it out to tenants with apparently assistance from City Power, the Johannesburg Council and even the courts.

Special Assignment's "Cash-for-land Scam" is produced by Adel van Niekerk.

Special Assignment on SABC3 apologizes for the channel's technical problems; promises Baragwanath expose for this Thursday night.

Technical problems at SABC3 on Thursday night stopped the broadcast of Special Assignment but that episode about atrocious conditions at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto will be shown this Thursday night.

"Special Assignment would like to apologise to you, our viewers, for the problems experienced just after our programme started on Thursday night. Our programme could not continue due to the technical glitches that the channel experienced," says the show.

"No Place for the Critical" produced by Adel van Niekerk which looks at the Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto will now be shown this Thursday, 2 August at 21:00 on SABC3 in Special Assignment.

TOLDJA! SABC3 moves Special Assignment to Wednesdays at 21:30 from next week; adds Ashraf Garda as new presenter.

SABC3 has just announced that its weekly and longrunning investigative news magazine show Special Assignment will be moving to Wednesdays at 21:30 as from next week which is exactly what I've told you would happen RIGHT HERE at the beginning of last month. Special Assignment also adds a new presenter, Ashraf Garda.

Ashraf Garda can be heard om SAfm and has been regularly seen on CNN International, Al Jazeera and CBC Canada during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

ALSO READ: Major primetime scheduling shake-up coming to SABC3's line-up from April.

BREAKING. SABC3 flooded with request, looking into rebroadcast of Special Assignment with last Eugene Terre'Blanche TV interview.

You're reading it here first.

I can tell you first that SABC3 (as have I, and I passed some on) has been absolutely inundated with enquiries and requests from viewers (and in my case, from people around the world) who didn't see the last TV interview with the murdered AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche on Tuesday in Special Assignment which I told you about RIGHT HERE.

I can now tell you that SABC3 is now definitely looking into it and the possibility of showing the TV interview again. ''We've had so many requests that we're currently looking at it,'' SABC3 tells me. The moment it happens, I will let you know.

Programming note. Eugene Terre'Blanche's last TV interview - described as ''very emotional'' - tonight on SABC3's Special Assignment.

The last TV interview of the recently murdered AWB leader Eugene Terre'Blanche - described by the producers to me as ''very emotional'' will be broadcast on SABC3 tonight at 20:31 on the TV channel's weekly investigative magazine show Special Assignment. I can show you this screengrab above out of tonight's interview exclusively first.

Eugene Terre'Blanche's last TV interview was recorded at his home in Ventersdorp a few weeks ago in February. The producers promise me that viewers will get goose flesh when he talks about the spate of farm murders, not knowing that he will become a victim of it himself.

Eugene Terre'Blanche talks in Afrikaans, with English subtitles in tonight's Special Assignment edition. Eugene Terre'Blanche answers several questions, talks about poor whites, farm attacks and what he sees as the ''waning South African economy under black rule''. ''Viewers will get emotional when they watch it,'' the award winning Special Assignment journalist Johann Abrahams told me yesterday when I spoke to him.
''You get goose flesh when he talks about farm murders. He gets very emotional when he talks about two women who were raped and killed. The whole interview is very emotional, but in places there's also some jokes and lighter moments. Viewers will get one last chance to see Eugene Terre'Blanche talking in the way that a lot of people remember that he spoke.''

BREAKING. SABC says 'Thabo critical' TV doccie was biased and one sided.

You're reading it here first. The SABC just said that the public broadcaster didn't refuse to air the documentary titled ''The Price of Denial''.

As background: The doccie, about 330 000 South Africans allegedly dying because of HIV/Aids related issues due to a loack of support of the previous president Thabo Mbeki, was allegedly supposed to be broadcast on SABC, but the SABC allegedly decided to can it. E.tv's 3rd Degree will now show it TONIGHT.

In a strong worded rebuttal the SABC just said that the broadcaster - as represented by the head of current affairs - looked at the documentary in question and decided that there were ''issues of balance that needed attention before it was ready for air''.
According to the SABC, these issues were raised with the producers.

The SABC says the doccie was ''flagrantly flouting'' the basic principles of fairness and balance. ''Both former president Mbeki and former health minister dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang were not afforded a chance to counter the allegations against them.''

The public broadcaster says: ''independent producers do not have an automatic platform on [sic] SABC. Their content has to be subjected to the SABC's own internal editorial policies as it was unsolicited material.''

Programming note: Pollsmoor's got talent with Jail Star.

Some sarcastically call it ''The Resort'', and for some offenders it's truly the final resort: a cesspool of gangs, drugs and violence. Tonight in Special Assignment at 20:31 on SABC3 the investigative magazine show takes a look at the power of television inside prison when Special Assignment visits Pollsmoor Prison and Jail Star.

Jail Star?

Yep. For the past 12 years Pollsmoor has been the training ground for an initiative that has seen the creation of a prison television station, called the Prison Broadcasting Network (PBN). PBN is the brainchild of Marius Boaden, a film industry veteran and sound engineer.

PBN has 3 offices in the prison section that includes a radio station, sound booth, TV studio and video editing suite.

The latest hit show is Jail Star, a reality talent show filmed by prisoners, that involves wardens and offenders as borh competitors and judges.

BREAKING. SABC3's Special Assignment wins international award.

You're reading it here first. First lie-detector tests, now bragging rights.

The SABC which ordered lie detector tests on its own people working on its own investigate journalism magazine show Special Assignment (after material for the haven't-yet-might-never-air episode looking at satirist Zapiro was leaked to The Mail & Guardian), now wants to brag with the show.

Johann Abrahams, executive producer of Special Assignment and investigator Godknows Nare have won a Special Prize Television award in the Lorenzo Natali awards held in Stockholm, Sweden.

Their winning entry was the documentary, ''Hell Hole'', which exposed the horrors of Zimbabwean prisons which aired on Special Assignment early this year.

The global Lorenzo Natali Prize rewards journalists committed to human rights and democracy.  This year they received more than a thousand entries.