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Executives may be richer, but the SABC is poorer, according to the broadcaster’s annual report released this week. The SABC may make headlines for the wrong reasons, but it is still the media of choice for most South Africans. Ferial Haffajee takes a look inside.
1. The nation’s been agog at COO Hlaudi Motsoeneng’s massive salary hike to R3.78 million in the past year. It’s not the highest. The head of commercial enterprises, Anton Heunis, earned R4.11 million in the same period, proving that white men can jump.
2. Motsoeneng earns much more than his patron, President Jacob Zuma. Communications Minister Faith Muthambi once told a board member she could not fire the COO because “Baba [President Zuma] loves Hlaudi so much”. Now we know how much.
3. Despite Motsoeneng’s pay hike, the SABC made a loss of R401 million. In the previous period, it stated a profit of R667 million. Expenses grew by 20% to R1.28 billion. The SABC has highlighted repeatedly that it has R1 billion in cash on hand, but this is not the key measure.
4. TV licences. Do you pay yours? Well done if you do because fewer people are doing this. Revenue attributable to licence fees is down from 17% of the total in 2011 to 12%. But while less is being earned from licences, the cost of collections shot up to R1.02 billion a year.
5. Staff costs make up the lion’s share of the SABC’s expenses – up from 28% of the total to 36% in the years between 2011 and 2015. The annual report says: “The employee compensation and benefit was R2.93 billion. This was a 16% increase year on year.” The report says the SABC has been on a recruitment drive. And Motsoeneng has been giving bonuses left, right and centre. The report goes on: “There was also the recognition of expenditure related to long-service awards, as well as employee recognition awards to staff, which were critical but not budgeted for.” So now we know.
6. Board members appear to be treating the SABC like a place of employment. Board meetings run at one a month (very high by governance standards) while board committees also meet regularly. The board members are paid for each meeting. There are four meetings scheduled annually, but in the period under review, there were 10 special meetings. The board has been through a series of crises.
7. Government grants have decreased from 9% of revenue in 2011 to 6% this year.
8. People love the SABC. Its radio stations have a weekly audience of 27.9 million ears. Nothing else comes close. Television draws eyeballs of 29.5 million, 27.6 million and 21.3 million for SABC1, 2 and 3, respectively, every week. It has R600 million worth of proposals out in the television market, says the annual report – up from R130 million in 2011. The television production industry has been in crisis because the SABC stopped commissioning programmes for a long time.
9. The SABC is led by CEO Frans Matlala, who was appointed in July, but the annual report’s foreword (traditionally written by a CEO) is written by Motsoeneng. He said in his foreword that the SABC had rapidly slimmed down the rate of complaints by the Auditor-General.
10. There are superb talents at the SABC who keep it going. The annual report has four glossy pages of awards they have won for news, documentaries, fabulous programmes and for retaining audiences when times are tough.
