Communications and Digital Technologies Minister Mondli Gungubele has defended the SABC's decision to cancel the popular Afrikaans soap, SABC2's “7de Laan”.
“The decision not to recommission ‘7de Laan’ was not taken lightly and followed all governance processes, including SABC Board approval and all criteria being considered that include the decline in audience (that} has an adverse impact on the financial viability of the show.
“This is aggravated by the increase in production costs due to annual increases over decades making the production expensive in comparison to other productions,” Gungubele said.
He also said based on the combination of a decline in audience, increase cost and decrease in advertising revenues, the programme has been running at a loss for the past five year despite several interventions to improve this decline in performance.
Gungubele was responding to parliamentary questions from GOOD party MP, Brett Herron, who enquired about the cancellation of the soapie.
Herron said 7de Laan had for two decades formed an intrinsic part of South African culture, as well as the Afrikaans language.
“Due to recent circumstances of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the show has been halted with immediate effect, which will have severe consequences for the hundreds of crew members, production staff and businesses linked to the specified show.
“What reparations and/or accommodation does the SABC intend to provide to the production team, due to the immediate nature of the cancellation?” he asked.
Herron also asked about the criteria used to decide which television shows should be cut and rationale other than funding was used to arrive at the decision.
He also wanted to know whether Gungubele had engaged with the SABC Board about the cancellation of the show and the show being saved by funding from his department or any other department, among other things.
In his response, Gungubele said “7de Laan” has not been halted with immediate effect and that the current contract with the production company will be honoured until completion.
He said the funding model of the SABC was advertising revenue, which was directly impacted by the performance of television shows.
“The criteria used is objectively applied to all productions; that is, the financial viability (cost and return on investment) of productions which is informed by and/or dependent on various factors, including audience share in terms of appeal to the market.
“The performance of 7de Laan has declined over the years to an unsustainable level.”
Gungubele stated that the decline in the fan base and audience over the past few years of the show had led to the production being unsustainable.
The show was not stopped immediately and the current production will continue until the end of the contract period.
“The relevant notice was given to the producer in accordance with the contract, and (b) the decline in audience as reported by the Industry Broadcast Research Council (BRC) reports informs all industry decisions.
“Advertising rate cards are determined by audience share which has a direct impact on advertising revenue,” he said.
Gungubele added that the SABC was exploring options to grow its channels which will include an Encore Channel to exploit all archived content, including “7de Laan” to preserve the cultural importance of the show. The replacement programme will maintain the delivery against the Afrikaans language within the SABC’s public service broadcasting mandate.
Saturday Star