SABC Bill Passes Muster In view of the upcoming football World Cup to be held in South Africa, the country is getting more attention than usual — its television sector in particular — with the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) at the forefront. In the news recently was the appointment of Peter Kwele, who formerly served as SABC’s general manager for Strategic Marketing and Communications, as the broadcaster’s new head of its 2010 project unit. In this new role, Kwele will focus on SABC’s delivery of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. Also in the news in late February was South Africa’s National Assembly, which approved a revised version of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill and returned it to President Kgalema Motlanthe for signature. The bill, which called for the sacking of the entire SABC board, had been returned to Parliament earlier this year after President Motlanthe expressed concerns about its constitutionality and refused to sign it. Despite the changes made, the legislation was still opposed by the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Inkatha Freedom Party, the Freedom Front Plus, the African Christian Democratic Party and the Independent Democrats. A DA spokesperson said that the bill had now been amended to make a proper enquiry mandatory before SABC board members could be summarily dismissed. Regardless, DA still opposed the bill because “the proposition that an entire board can be evicted is destructive of the security of tenure without which an independent board cannot protect the journalistic freedom of it editorial staff.” Ismail Vadi, chairman of the Communications Committee (which drafted the bill), defended the revised bill, noting that it was unreasonable to allow the firing of a single member of the board, but not the whole board if it became dysfunctional. PeaceArch To Find its Peace Canadian film and TV company PeaceArch Entertainment is still looking to find its new path. Even though its future has not yet been disclosed, speculation says that it is to be split up –– some assets kept and others either shut down or sold. It is hoped, however, that some entity of PeaceArch will continue to weather the storm and survive. In any case, PeaceArch North American Home Entertainment (a joint venture with ContentFilm) and the Canadian TV divisions are said to be doing well. U.K.’s ITV In Merger Mood The U.K.’s ITV network announced that in the past few months it has considered mergers with other companies, including U.K.’s Channel 4 and RTL’s U.K.-based Five. The confession came in response to the impending release of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review, an annual government report on the performance of media companies, in which ITV’s figures are expected to be weak. Representatives from ITV said that they contemplated the mergers at the urgings of Digital Britain, which encouraged participating companies to brainstorm radical business ideas. Despite the announcement, ITV executives made it clear that the merger idea had not been discussed by the board, and would likely violate the Communications Act of 2003, which addresses competition and monopoly law. Nevertheless, the firm’s 2008 revenues are expected to be markedly down. ITV has said that for the time being, it plans to tackle its profit margin by cutting costs, beginning with a reduction of mid-level executives. Reps from Five have also made comments favoring a merger. MA R C H/ AP R I L 2 0 0 9 (Continued on Page 10)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTI4OTA5