South African actors on the US strike: 'We're absolutely in this fight with our American counterparts'.

by Thinus Ferreira

Filming of at least one series of a video streaming service, done in Cape Town, has shut down following the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike in the United States with more overseas productions done in South Africa which will follow, while the South African Guild of Actors (SAGA) says they stand united in the fight behind their American counterparts demanding better contracts and working conditions. 

American actors have joined writers, who have been striking for 80 days and counting, with three of Hollywood's big three labour unions that are now on strike.

It comes after SAG-AFTRA asked its 160 000 members to strike after the drawn-out negotiation period with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) which represents Hollywood's biggest studios and video streaming services like Netflix, expired.

SAG-AFTRA demands structural changes and improvements to the residuals paid to actors by video streaming services - the money actors earn when their work is shown on streamers. SAG-AFTRA also wants regulations to be put in place around the utilisation of generative artificial intelligence (AI) when creating TV shows and films.

"SAGA stands in solidarity with SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America (WGA)," Jack Devnarain SAGA chairperson told TVwithThinus.

"We are very aware of the issues that they have raised during their negotiations with the streamers. We think that these are critical issues which are of global importance because even in South Africa we are confronted with the same issues."

"American actors are looking for better residual payments for their work on the streaming platforms and very importantly, they are also looking for protection from AI so that their work can't be replicated or co-opted by software programmes. These are some of the big issues that we are facing in South Africa as well," Jack Devnarain said.

"The big difference is that while in the United States those actors have the right to unionise and to engage in industrial action, in South Africa freelancers are not protected by the Labour Relations Act - in fact, we are specifically excluded. It means we may not form a union, or engage in union activities, or to engage in industrial action like going on strike".

"This is an important opportunity in terms of establishing an industry standard around the world," Jack Devnarain said.

"Because the US is such an important engine for creative industry growth and productivity, it means that the issues they are confronted with were always going to reach boiling point much faster than anywhere else in the world. Now we are there."

"The unions in the US have taken a bold and absolutely necessary stance to stop the abuse of performers and writers and to stand for some kind of protection and to guarantee the residuals that need to be paid to performers."

"Of course in South Africa, not only are we denied royalty payments, but we also have the streaming platforms that have come into South Africa and are shamelessly exploiting South African talent while claiming that their business model does not allow for any residual payments."

"We absolutely are in this fight with our American counterparts," Jack Devnarain said.

SA: There will be show suspensions

SAGA said it's knowledgeable of at least one show for a global streaming service that suspended production in South Africa last Friday which is one of the Cape Town-based shows.

Jack Devnarain said that "We are likely to see more of those, and those are necessary suspensions because they are using US talent. Yes, there will be suspensions, and as a result there may be work being diverted towards South African writers, possibly even South African actors."

"There is however no chance that any member of the South African Guild of Actors or the Writers Guild of South Africa would exploit any such opportunity to their benefit."

Netflix South Africa which has the most shows in production in the country of the global streamers on Friday didn't respond to a media query seeking comment about the shuttering of its local shows utilising American talent. 

Amazon Prime Video SA which has also started to commission and produce shows in South Africa like LOL: Last One Laughing South Africa which has comedian Trevor Noah as host, also didn't respond to a media query.  

SA: Battle for residuals continuing

According to Jack Devnarain the discussion around actor royalties in South Africa "is still very much on the table and following the parliamentary process".

"What we are looking at is the procedural delays that happen when you are engaged in that parliamentary process. Right now the bills are sitting with the National Council of Provinces and we are expecting that in July the provinces themselves will be making their representations on the changes that they have approved on the bills. We expect a final vote from the National Council of Provinces by September."

"With that timeline - in the course of that delay - we are very aware of a very strong lobbying effort that is being conducted by such organisations as the Commercial Producers Organisation of South Africa (CPA), the Independent Producers Organisation (IPO), Netflix and MultiChoice. These are some of the organisations lobbying very strongly against the bills."

Commercially insolvent SABC has now also stopped paying royalties to musicians; local artists owed millions of rands for music used on public broadcaster's radio and TV channels.

The SABC has now also stopped making royalty payments to South African artists and musicians, similar to local producers and production companies being owed millions of rands by the commercially insolvent South African public broadcaster.

On Sunday the City Press newspaper reported that the SABC owes the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro) - the shambolic and controversial music rights organisation itself caught up in chaos and allegations of corruption - over R55.5 million by the end of June 2018.

Samro is South Africa's only music performance rights collection organisation and pays over hundreds of millions of rands to local musicians and artists annually.

Samro's annual report released in December 2018 indicates that the SABC owes Samro - and therefore South Africa's musicians and artists - millions of rands for music that have been used and that continues to be used on the SABC's radio stations and TV channels without pay.

The SABC is silent and doesn't want to say what the exact amount is that the cash-strapped South African broadcaster owes to Samro.

The SABC also owes millions of rands to South African producers and production companies for TV content it already received and broadcast and that it's not paying and can't afford to pay, in addition to non-payment to other service providers.

The SABC is also no longer able to pay its whole monthly electricity bill anymore and will from end-February 2019 no longer be able to pay all staff salaries, and from end-March 2019 no longer be able to pay any SABC staffers.

The SABC's royalties paid to Samro for music used on its radio and TV channels, and then to artists amounts to a third of Samro's income, with the SABC's that stopped paying that has put a dent of 22% less income in Samro and therefore local musicians' pocket.

While the SABC has been begging for another government bailout in the form of a government-guaranteed bank loan similar to the one in 2011 during its previous financial crisis, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, South Africa's latest minister of communications, has been publicly fighting and distancing herself from the collapsing SABC board, and has done little to solve the SABC's extremely urgent cash crisis.

SABC, 'limping from day to day', owes artists millions of rand in unpaid royalties; blames its financial crisis for its failure to pay.

The SABC owes singers and musicians millions of rand in unpaid royalties and more millions in residuals to actors, with the struggling public broadcaster on the brink of financial collapse, blaming its severe money woes for its failure to pay.

The SABC on Wednesday told parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) that the SABC "is behind with royalty payments" and owes artists at least R75.4 million.

The SABC owes the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro) R14.5 million, the SA Music Performance Rights Association (Sampra) R52.7 million, the Association of Independent Record Companies (ARIC) R2.8 million, the Composers Authors and Publishers Association (Capasso) R3 million and the Recording Industry of South Africa (Risa) R2.4 million.

The SABC didn't provide any numbers for the outstanding millions it owes actors and writers for residuals for the rebroadcasts and repeats of TV shows like Sgudi 'Snaysi on SABC1 and the library shows broadcast on its SABC Encore channel on MultiChoice's DStv satellite pay-TV platform.

The SABC told parliament that the last time it paid any royalties to artists was in December 2016 but didn't specify an amount, and blames the public broadcaster's cash-strapped status.

The SABC also failed to pay all artists, winners and contributors for the 2017 Metro FM Awards held months ago.

Bessie Tugwana, acting COO, blamed the SABC's non-payment of artists on a "struggle to get verified documentation so we could pay" and the SABC's "cash-flow problem". She told parliament that everyone will be paid at the end of May.

A year ago, in May 2016, SABC spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago announced that the SABC will immediately increase the royalty tariff paid to artists for music content played on the SABC's 18 radio stations and TV channels from 3.2% to 4% - but nothing came of that, with the SABC unable to even pay the 3.2%.

The SABC referring to its situation as "dire" and saying it's "limping from day to day", told parliament on Wednesday that the "90% local content" decree for local music airplay on radio and "80% local content" on SABC TV ordered by the former chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng has destroyed the public broadcaster and is threatening the very existence of the SABC that doesn't have the money to pay for it.

New SABC interim deputy chairperson Mathatha Tshedu revealed that the SABC blew an additional R72 million on new local content to replace other local content no longer deemed suitable, for the 90% local content policy.

"We are looking at taking back detrimental consequences of some decisions. We are looking at the 90% which saw both the television and radio losing millions. It's implementation has to take cognisance of the fact that it mustn't threaten the existence of the SABC itself, which is what it is doing."

The SABC revealed that it wasted another R74 million in TV content it bought but never showed, marked as fruitless and wasteful expenditure.

The SABC, now struggling to pay staff and producers, further spent hundreds of millions of rand on irregular content buying, for instance R63 million in 2016/17 and R240 million in 2015/16.

Already owing them millions of rand in outstanding payments, last week the SABC told South African producers going forward that it only wants to pay them 25% monthly of the money they're due although they're expected to keep delivering 100% of the content the SABC requires to keep its TV channels on the air.

Communications minister Ayanda Dlodlo told parliament that "the dire state of the SABC wasn't brought to us voluntarily by executives. We had to dig".

Ayanda Dlodlo said the SABC's initial bailout request to treasury was inadequate. "It was like putting an Elastoplast on a wound instead of treating the wound".

After getting a bailout in the form of a R1.47 billion government-guaranteed Nedbank loan in 2009 during its previous bailout when the SABC teetered on the brink of collapse eight years ago, it's not yet known what amount in another government-guaranteed loan the SABC is seeking this time in its next bailout.

Loss-making SABC to increase royalty tariff paid to South African artists for needletime on its radio stations and TV channels from 3.2% to 4%.

The loss-making SABC on Thursday announced that the South African public broadcaster will increase the royalty tariff paid to artists for music content played on the SABC's 18 radio stations and TV channels from 3.2% to 4%.

The announcement of an increase in pay-outs is great news for local established and new South African musicians who will benefit from a bigger payout every time their music is played on public South African airwaves.


The news comes on the back of the SABC's recent decree by its chief operating officer (COO) Hlaudi Motsoeneng of a 90% local music content quota across all 18 of its radio stations that was widely welcomed by South African artists.

The royalty tariff will increase from 3.2% to 4% for artists registered with the Southern African Music Rights Organisation (SAMRO), South African Music Performance Rights Association (SAPRA), Independent Music Performance Rights Association (IMPRA) and the Association of Independent Record Companies (ARIC).

Still problematic however is that besides these four organisations, there's a lot of South African artists who are not registered with any of these bodies.

Also still troubling, is that many South African artists are still waiting on millions of rands in royalty back payments that's not been made.

South African artists also complain about problems regarding effective monitoring and reporting of needletime (which in turn negatively impacts on subsequent payouts).

The increased royalty tariff means more money for South African musicians' pocket but also more money that will have to be paid by the SABC.

The public broadcaster made a loss of R395 million in its latest reported financial year, and recently dramatically announced that it wants to start four new "language-based" TV channels, each of which will cost around R500 million to set up and operate.

Hlaudi Motsoeneng said the SABC is going to pay R1 billion to especially new and emerging local TV producers to create TV content for these channels but didn't specify where the astronomical amount of money is coming from.

"This move [to increase the royalty tariff] is meant to stimulate the music industry, through creating jobs and unearthing new talent. The SABC also wants to restore the dignity of creatives to move away from a situation of creatives in the music industry dying as paupers," says Hlaudi Motsoeneng.

"We're thrilled as SAMPRA by the bold decision taken by the SABC to beat the 3% rate set by the courts and up it to 4%," says Sean Watson, SAMPRA chairperson.

"We are very excited and looking forward to artists' lives changing. We have waited for 30 years for this," says Arthur Mafokate, SAMRO representative.

"On behalf of IMPRA and AIRCO, we are embracing and remain committed and grateful of the announcement from the SABC about 4% needle time payments to us as record companies," says Dodo Monamedi, chairperson of AIRCO and IMPRA.

Besides the increased payout the SABC is also setting money aside to pay a once-off honorarium in July to local South African musicians like Babsy Mlangeni, Steve Kekana and Letta Mbuli.

OLD RECORD. The SABC again promises parliament that it WILL be paying 'royalties' to local artists; the problem is - it never actually STARTS.

Sounding like an old record the SABC on Tuesday again told parliament that it will start paying "royalties" to South African artists - yet again making the same future promises it's said over and over and over for years now.

On Tuesday in parliament, the SABC's chief financial officer (CFO) James Aguma told the portfolio committee on communications that "the SABC wants to announce that in the broadcast cost we've also provided for the payments of royalties to artists".

"We have taken a decision that we shall be settling these from 2006. So, we will be paying these and we have provided for that," said James Aguma.

He also told parliament that the SABC is "putting a cap on staff numbers".

Ironically the SABC was ordered in 2011 to reduce the SABC staff number - and promised to do so in order to get a R1.2 billion government-guaranteed loan from Nedbank to save it from financial collapse.

The SABC never complied with that personnel reduction as part of the loan obligation.

"We're only recruiting those that are directly influencing broadcasting," said James Aguma.

He told parliament the SABC plans to close 2017 with R900 million in cash.

He said the SABC plans to close the 2017/2018 financial year with R895 million.

James Aguma says the SABC intends to increase its commissioning spend in local programming content, as well as broadcasting infrastructure.