Support to community broadcasters: GCIS, MDDA, Sentech & ICASA; with Deputy Minister

This premium content has been made freely available

Communications and Digital Technologies

10 November 2020
Chairperson: Mr B Maneli (ANC)
Share this page:

Meeting Summary

The Portfolio Committee convened in a virtual meeting to receive briefings from four entities in the Communications and Digital Technologies portfolio. The four entities were the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), Sentech and the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (ICASA). The key issue that was discussed was the provision of assistance to community broadcasters in order to expand news access for all South Africans.

During the discussion, Members suggested government departments should be encouraged to support the GCIS and the MDDA by advertising on their media platforms. They also urged the utilisation of the private sector to grow community media and radio stations. It was important to identify early signs of weaknesses in the media space, and for the GCIS to build partnerships with government to address gender-based violence,

Members unanimously agreed that there should be no political interference in community media and radio stations, and that digitalisation in the media space should be speeded up. They encouraged community broadcasters to appeal to young voters, and supported an approach to diversify media and to include more indigenous languages in order to benefit the overall population.

Among other key issues, Members enquired about the one radio station, one district, model; the Department’s plan to assist Sentech; sustainable solutions to support community media, the Department’s plan to combat fake news, dealing with the MDDA’s debt;  and the MDDA’s use of MultiChoice in its digital strategy planning.

Meeting report

The Chairperson said apologies had been received from the Minister in the Presidency, as he was attending another Cabinet meeting, the Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, who was doing political work in the Eastern Cape, and Deputy Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, who was leading a meeting on the district development model in the Free State. He acknowledged the presence of the Deputy Minister in the Presidency, Ms Thembi Siweya.

Deputy Minister’s overview

Deputy Minister Siweya acknowledged that it was important for the Department to account and update the Portfolio Committee on its daily operation and recent events.

She commented on the important role of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA) Act. The objective of the Act was to achieve a meaningful effect on section 16 of the Bill of Rights. It had been sponsored by the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS), and aimed to ensure the government capacitated and empowered the media sector. The Bill aimed to repeal the Independent Broadcasting Authority Act in order to promote and ensure media freedom for all South Africans, as well as to promote the languages spoken by all South Africans.

The Deputy Minister emphasised the government’s approach to supporting small and commercial media in communities, as well as assisting in the digitalisation of those platforms.

Since 2019, there had been engagements among various organs of state in support of community and commercial media. This presentation would address that in detail.

She asked Members to debate and to provide inputs on the transformation agenda in the media space. She emphasised that the way forward in the media space should focus on diversification, incorporating all the cultures and languages in South Africa.

GCIS: community media support programme 2019 - 2020

Mr Michael Currin, Acting Deputy Director-General: Intergovernmental Coordination and Stakeholder Management, GCIS, described the GCIS’s mandate, vision and mission, as well as its strategic goals. He explained why community media was important to South Africa, and highlighted the importance of diversity in getting stories from all types of South Africans from all different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.

He referred to the wide spread of people that the GCIS had to reach in order to provide information, and emphasised the vulnerable position of the media in gaining access to many rural populations. 

He assured the Committee of the GCIS’s dedicated position in working with community media, and reported on how it had supported community media during the 2019/20 financial year, showing graphs and percentages of the government’s online presence, particularly in the social media space.

The GCIS’s support in the provincial and local spheres was also described, a highlight being the gender-based violence (GBV) advertising in 2019 in which the GCIS had taken it as its mission to demonstrate its active role in social advocacy in the local media.

The GCIS’s expenditure on media buying for advertisements in the 2019/20 financial year was provided to Members.

Mr Currin concluded the presentation with the GCIS’s optimistic vision for its opportunities in the future.

MDDA on mitigating high signal costs and digitisation of the sector

Ms Zukiswa Potye, Chief Executive Officer: Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), briefed the Committee on the entity’s strategies in mitigating high signal costs and the digitisation of the sector.

She said the approved R18 million budget for the 2019/20 financial year consisted of funding for 22 approved projects, connection fees and signal distribution costs. The entity’s strategies to mitigate high signal costs included set-up costs, buying-out of capital assets, self-provisioning, and maintenance and support expertise.

The entity’s plan to digitise the sector included four aspects:

  • Digital migration strategy
  • External support
  • Digital ready broadcast studios
  • Digital presence audit.

Ms Potye stressed that the entity’s lack of funding might result in some platforms being non-operational.

She reported on the policy developments in the digital broadcasting space, such as the White Paper on audio and audio-visual content services, Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB)+ trials, and policy directives on digital sound broadcasting.

Sentech: Signal Distribution Costs

Dr Sandile Malinga, Board chairperson: Sentech, emphasised the crucial role that community media played in strengthening the democracy of the country.

Mr Mlamli Booi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO): Sentech, reiterated community broadcasters’ important role in promoting democracy and citizen participation. The role of Sentech was to ensure that broadcast facilities had access to all citizens in the country.

He described how Sentech had supported the community media sector. He appealed to the Committee for assistance, because the entity had not been receiving sufficient funds, year after year, to cover its operational costs.

Community broadcasters in total owed Sentech an amount of R67 million. Although Sentech had offered payment holidays -- deferred payments -- to most customers during the toughest time of the lockdown and had extended the grace period, it was of great importance for debtors to pay what were due for the sustainability of the entity.

He explained Sentech’s business model and the current operating model, highlighting its cost-effective capital investment and its minimal wastage of resources.

ICASA: Regulatory Framework for Community Broadcasting

Dr Keabetswe Modimoeng, Chairperson: Independent Communication Authority of South Africa (ICASA), briefed the Committee on the regulatory framework for community broadcasters, its mandates and guiding principles, and the distribution of community radio stations in South Africa.

ICASA’s new licensing framework for community broadcasters was explained.

The presentation highlighted the Authority’s monitoring process to ensure sustainability of the community sector. ICASA had taken a proactive approach to assisting community broadcasters.

Discussion

Ms P Faku (ANC) appreciated the good work performed by the GCIS. South Africans could feel the GCIS’s presence. She highlighted its work on GBV education, which she believed was very important. She suggested the GCIS should build partnerships with government departments in order to create synergy to combat this social issue.

She commented on the need to tackle the mainstream media, which were mainly communicated in Afrikaans and English, and were consumed by the minority elites. This situation made it difficult for people from rural areas to access information. She therefore urged the GCIS to improve and to include all languages spoken in the country, so that the people could get to know about their government.

Ms Faku said the MDDA had to pay what it owed. In the past when there was debt, the state always took the responsibility to pay when an entity was not performing well. This should not be the case, and the MDDA must pay.

She commented on the MDDA’s digital strategy, which used Multichoice, and urged it to accommodate the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).

She said the audio visual policy must be reviewed, and she supported the view that the authority of ICASA needed to be strengthened and enhanced.

Ms P van Damme (DA) commented that she saw a lot of room for collaborative work.  She commended the fantastic work done by the GCIS in getting the COVID-19 message through to the public. She observed that the GCIS had also partnered with community media to convey the message, in order to reach a broader audience.

She acknowledged the importance of digitalisation, and urged the Department to start working on it. The COVID-19 pandemic had forced businesses and government to continue their daily operations online. She believed that this was the future, and this pandemic had shown the importance of digitalisation. For instance, a person should be able to apply for grants and fill out documents online without having to be physically at the post office. To achieve that, she encouraged the MDDA, the GCIS and the Department to work together collaboratively.

She recognised the important role that the GCIS and MDDA had played in appealing to young voters. These two entities had devised strategies to get young South Africans to come out in great numbers to participate in their civic duty.

Commenting on the spreading of fake news around the world during election times, she said she would not want to see the media space being infiltrated by political influence and ending up focusing on only one political party. The media played a huge role in influencing constituents. For instance, whenever there was xenophobic sentiment expressed on social media, this often directly resulted in attacks on foreigners. The GCIS therefore needed to combat fake news and stay away from political interference. This was especially important, as the country was entering election time soon.

Continuing on her remarks on political interference in the media space, she said ICASA had also mentioned political interference in community media. The Committee had noticed this pattern when it performed its oversight role in the fifth Parliament, so she suggested that a mechanism be set up to shield community media from those external influences. She warned the Committee that the influence sometimes came from the very same people in those communities.

Ms Van Damme asked the MDDA to provide a list of names that it funded for the digitalisation of media.

Mr C Mackenzie (DA) commented on fake news in the media. The recent election in the United States had exposed the lack of credibility of the U.S. mainstream media, which were being used to favour a certain political candidate. He was very proud of the South African media for not stooping to that level. He asked the Department about its plans to combat fake news, as it severely undermined democracy.

He recognised the importance of digitalisation, and urged the government to go full speed before it was too late. He recalled an experience when he had purchased a car in 2016. He was impressed that there was an application which allowed him to listen to almost all the radio stations in the world. He asked the Committee to carefully ponder this anecdote, and see what services other parts of the world were offering. This was why South Africa needed to move with speed on digitalisation.

He was not quite clear about the term ‘historically diminished groups,’ which Ms Potye had used, and asked her to provide some clarity on the phrase.

Mr Mackenzie noted a pattern that entities such as the SABC had a tendency to use Sentech as a scapegoat for their own bad performance. He was not convinced and certainly did not think that it was fair, since Sentech had done a wonderful job. He asked Sentech about the fees model used for pricing, and if it could be accused of overcharging its clients and not delivering value for service.

Mr L Molala (ANC) commended the good performance at most of the entities. He agreed with the Deputy Minister that although the entities were doing well, there was still a need for the Committee to engage in meaningful conversations with them to ensure accountability.

He pointed out that there was a lack of reference in the presentations that addressed the entities’ sustainable plans to support community media. The key objective was to make them self-sufficient.

Mr Molala also cautioned entities against gravitating towards using signal distribution costs for their failure to ensure good governance.

He remarked on the global surge in right-wing politics, and said that there was a need to ensure that community media did not get captured by political interference which would turn into an ideology. He agreed with Mr Mackenzie that media reporting needed to be neutral.

He asked the MDDA about its plan to help community media, given its central position on democracy.

He stressed the importance of detecting and identifying early signs of weaknesses before they became a problem. How many years it would take for the MDDA to repay the money that was owed to Sentech? He cautioned against those entities increasing their debts. 

Ms N Khubheka (ANC) appreciated the collaborative work carried out amongst all the entities.

She commented on the GCIS’s struggle to persuade government departments to advertise in its space, and asked if entities such as the GCIS and MDDA could manage to persuade all the departments to agree to advertise in their media and grow their businesses. She further recommended encouraging and using the resources of the private sector to grow the revenues of the community media.

Recognising the MDDA’s financial struggle, she asked if it was possible to engage with the National Treasury to assist the entity. Although she understood ICASA’s regulations, she said that there needed to be a strategy to help community radio stations to renew their contracts. The renewals should not wait until the contracts had expired.

She fully endorsed the view that there should be no political interference at community media and radio stations in order to provide fair and unbiased reporting to the most vulnerable and disenfranchised population.

She enquired about the one district, one community, radio station model. She said that in a vast district, one radio station may not be able to cover the whole area, and asked what measures were available to remedy that.

Recognising that MDDA owed a lot of money to Sentech, and given the important roles of both entities, she asked what the Department planned to do to relieve Sentech’s financial burden.

Department’s response

Ms Nomvuyiso Batyi, Director-General, Department of Communications, explained the Department’s approach and strategy in dealing with fake news. It had all started around 27 March 2020, when a multi-sectoral team consisting of civil society representatives, the GCIS, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Facebook and Twitter, was set up to deal with the increasing amount of fake news following the Covid19 pandemic. The Department was currently reflecting on the lessons which it had learnt in this process, to inform it on the strategies to address the fake news issue as the election time approached. The multi-sectoral team had developed terms of reference, and had learnt a lot from the experience through tackling fake news under the COVID-19 scenario.

She highlighted the important role in dispelling fake news on social media platforms, such as WhatsApp communication. Overall, she assured Ms Van Damme and other Committee Members who were concerned with fake news, that the government was taking the issue seriously. The government employed people who had expertise in the sector to work on it, in order to mitigate the damage of fake news in the communication arena.

GCIS’s response

Mr Currin responded to Ms Faku that the GCIS would double its efforts in GBV hotspot areas in order to get the message through. It could always provide more detail on this to her.

He said a good communication social compact was the key for community media moving forward in the local space. The GCIS was adopting that approach going forward.

Mr Tyrone Seale, Acting Deputy Director-General: Content Processing and Dissemination, GCIS, responded to the question on advertising, and said the GCIS had departed from its previous position, which had aimed to get all departments to participate in a centralised way.

He highlighted the economic sustainability of community media was directly correlated to the broader economic prosperity in the country. He hoped that as the economy recovered, so would community media also grow. As for the moment, the entire media sector was strained following the lockdown, and both the private and public sectors were straining to provide assistance to one another.

MDDA’s response

Ms Potye reassured the Committee that the entity would not be captured by anyone in the state organs. It would strive to be neutral.

Mr Mzuvukile Kashe, Executive Manager: Projects, MDDA, explained the entity’s choice to work with MultiChoice. It had felt that it was important to expand access to the community radio sector, so it had started its process to engage with various partners. In the initial discussions, MultiChoice had offered to include all community radio stations, which would then result in the expansion of the community radio sector. The entity had been pleased with MultiChoice’s offer, but it was still examining its implications and assessing the benefits, as well as the legal obligations for community radio broadcasters.

Ms Cheryl Langbridge, Acting Executive Manager: Research, Training, Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E), MDDA, agreed with Members on their concerns over the media’s fair reporting during election times. The recent experience with the U.S. election had shed light on the importance of fair and unbiased reporting. A few years ago, the MDDA had held a training programme which aimed to help reporting on national elections, and a number of community media had undertaken that training. The entity was planning to do this training programme again in the fourth quarter of the financial year. It would be done in partnership with other organisations, and aimed to cover a wide range of issues. One of the key issues was the identification of fake news. The entity would be going to the provinces to conduct training in order to broaden the reach of community broadcasters.

Mr Yaseen Asmal, Chief Financial Officer, said the MDDA’s budget cut in the current financial year was under 1%, and was 4.75% and 8.5% respectively for the next two financial years. As the majority of the entity’s funding came from Universal Service and Access Fund (USAF) levies, the COVID-19 impact was still unknown. Meanwhile, the entity was not in a position to provide additional funding or make any adjustment to its current funding.

Ms Potye responded on Ms Faku’s suggestion regarding working with the SABC. She said she had learnt about the SABC’s willingness to work with the entity only last night, so the entity had been in touch with the SABC this morning. More details from the discussion would be reported to the Committee.

Ms Potye responded to Ms Van Damme that grant recipients had the option to choose either to apply online, or do it the normal way, which was to apply physically.

Ms Potye told Ms Van Damme and Mr Mackenzie that the MDDA was funding digital printing. The entity had funded a couple of projects. She said that there were about 24 broadcasters that were online and on social media.

She also explained why the entity had partnered with MultiChoice. A couple of community radio stations had approached the MDDA and suggested it should approach MultiChoice. The entity was therefore assisting those broadcasters.

She explained to Mr Mackenzie that in terms of the MDDA Act, it was called ‘historically diminished indigenous languages and cultural groups.’

The long-term sustainability of the media sector was one thing that was very close to the MDDA executive’s heart. The entity had ascertained challenges and had then held a two-day consultative conference to discuss the sustainability of the sector. A sustainability research report would be published. The key areas identified were revenue generation, consolidated government support, audience measurement and digital innovation. She highlighted the importance of working with Sentech, and said the entity had been engaging with Sentech to discuss the operational costs.

She said most districts had more than one radio station, which was related to ICASA’s licensing. Hence, a new legislative amendment was required in order to change that situation. 

Commenting on Sentech’s debt issue, she explained that prior to 2012, an amount of R20 million would always be appropriated by the National Treasury to pay for the expenses of signal distribution. The amount that had been lost since 2012 had resulted its debt skyrocketing. The entity would now try to pay Sentech, and was also asking Sentech to provide it with a reasonable payment plan.

Sentech’s response

Mr Booi said Sentech recognised the importance of community media to promote news access for all South Africans, including those living in rural areas. He assured the Committee that Sentech valued the importance of community media, and was doing all it could to assist their sustainability.

Mr Tebogo Leshope, Chief Operations Officer: Sentech, explained Sentech’s role in helping community broadcasters to adapt to digital migration. Sentech was under way to transform digital migration for those broadcasters. As Sentech gradually started to switch from analogue to digital migration, community broadcasters would be assisted as well. It had also deployed its own capacity to help community radio stations to make radio streaming a service for those broadcasters.

Digital audio broadcasting had been established in Gauteng, and Sentech was looking to expand to KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape. This process would take about two to five years, and would also need community broadcasters to be ready for this transition. There were numerous benefits associated with this digital migration, such as saving spectrum for more needy areas, being more cost-effective, as well as more sustainable for the future. Sentech had also proposed a certain percentage of ownership of those assets by community broadcasters in order to lessen the monthly operational costs for them. He hoped the implementation of digital migration would be commencing in the 2021/22 financial year.

Mr Booi addressed the issue on Sentech’s value for money. He believed that for the services Sentech offered, they were definitely providing value. It was very responsible with the prices it charged its clients. For instance, it had offered approximately an 25% discount to its clients, which showed responsible gesture towards ensuring the sustainability of the public broadcasting sector.

Sentech was also working with the MDDA to ensure that the provisioning in the distribution of content was at competitive pricing for public broadcasters. The entity always looked for the most economical and cost-effective way to work with resources such as its capital investments and the cost of the quality goods that it was going to purchase. The entity was very strict in its supply chain tender processes as it sifted through the best cost and quality options before making a decision. He assured the Committee that all capital investments at Sentech were done in a responsible way.

He urged that a national discussion was needed on how to deal with the sustainability of the community broadcasters, as the unilateral efforts of Sentech would not be sufficient to make a meaningful impact.

ICASA’s response

Dr Modimoeng noted the aspiration for one district, one station. He said that at the moment, ICASA needed a legislative amendment to grant it the power to reinforce those rules, as the current legislation would not allow it to do so.

Mr Willington Ngwepe, Chief Executive Officer, ICSA, reaffirmed the constraints that ICASA faced from the legislative perspective, and said that it was working within the confines of the law and was doing what it could to amend regulations in its licensing approach. Primarily, it had introduced a two-phased licensing approach for community broadcasters. Phase number one was the pre-registration process, and phase 2 was the detailed assessment which was subject to the 80 days that the advert provided for. At phase one, the objective was to eliminate those community broadcasters that did not have a sound business model and did not have a sustainable audience in the community that it aimed to target. Although this process that ICASA had initiated was a process that aimed to license only suitable and competitive broadcasters, it would not help address the legacy issue of the past. The legacy issue could be addressed only by introducing new legislative amendments.

Responding to Ms Khubheka’s question on ICASA’s role in assisting MDDA on timeous license renewals, he said the entity proactively sent reminders to almost all of its licensees prior to their licence expiry dates, reminding them to send in their renewal applications. However, given that there were multiple factors affecting the licensees, such as governance or erratic changes of management, not all of them responded to ICASA timeously. ICASA also continuously engaged with the MDDA to follow up on the licensees’ information.

Conclusion

The Chairperson concluded the meeting with a brief summary of what had been discussed at the day’s meeting.

The topics had ranged from the sustainability of community media transmissions to the cost of shifting from traditional advertisements to digitalised advertisements. He appreciated the good work of the GCIS during the difficult time of COVID-19, in dealing with fake news. Collaboration was needed between the Department and government entities to ensure support for community media in order to provide news access to all citizens. The Committee understood ICASA’s point of view and appreciated how it was working within the existing legislation, and had introduced the regulations. He emphasised the importance of paying Sentech as a way to reduce future transmission costs for community media.

The meeting was adjourned.

Share this page: