Issued by: Government Communications (GCIS)
The Broadcasting Bill, which was tabled in Parliament today (Friday, August 7, 1998) spells out a Charter which is to govern the SABC in future and paves the way for the corporatisation of the SABC.
Jay Naidoo, Minister for Posts, Telecommunications and Broadcasting said the Charter would be enacted by Parliament and the Independent Broadcasting Authority will monitor compliance of the SABC to the Charter, and complaints arising from it.
The Charter lays out conditions regarding The split of the SABC into a public broadcasting service and a commercial broadcasting service; Corporate governance of the SABC, including the appointment of the board of directors by the President; Financial matters, including confirming government as the sole shareholder and requirements regarding tabling annual financial statements in Parliament by the Minister; Outlining the objectives of the commercial and public broadcasting services, community broadcasting services, signal distribution and multi-channel distribution.
The Charter
requires the SABC's commercial broadcasting arm to comply with the IBA's licensing requirements, for example, commercial subscription broadcasting, local content requirements and significant amounts of programmes acquired from independent producers;
excludes the SABC from acquiring exclusive rights for the broadcast of national sporting events on any commercial subscription services;
requires the IBA to conduct feasibility studies into the provision of more than one additional subscription telvision service and into the impact of community television;
provides for the IBA to issue community terrestrial radio and television licenses;
limits the amount of advertising revenue community radio and television stations can draw from national advertisers;
requires the IBA to conduct public hearings to determine the terms, regulations and conditions to phase in geographically-founded community services; and
requires the IBA to submit a report to the Minister regarding terms, license conditions, obligations and tariff structure to govern the signal distribution sector on opening of the sector to competition by the year 2000.
Naidoo said the Broadcasting Amendment Bill, that was tabled earlier this year, has been withdrawn to allow the culmination of the White Paper process, and its key provisions - including the corporatisation of the SABC - are now contained in the Broadcasting Bill.
"At present, the SABC is constituted in terms of the Broadcasting Act (1976) and as such it does not have to account to shareholders, but only has to report to Parliament through the tabling of its annual reports. This new Bill seeks to establish the SABC as a public company with the State as sole shareholder. This will ensure proper reporting in terms of the Companies Act to it shareholder, the State," he said.