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Since SABC chief operating officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng has everyone up in arms over the dramatic changes at the SABC, why stop now?
Why only bring in 90% local music and 80% local content quotas?
If he really wants to be revolutionary, he should give producers the copyright to their content.
South Africa’s copyright law is archaic. Created in 1978, it states that with all commissioned projects (when an artist is given a brief by a client, as well as the money to produce the artwork), all rights belong to the client and not the artist.
In effect, SABC producers (and e.tv and DStv’s) are akin to salaried employees, who wait for month-end to receive their production fees. Many producers are entrepreneurs in name only.
The time is right for Motsoeneng to make his boldest, most innovative change, and inspire other broadcasters to do the same.
Producers could finally make money from their creativity. Real money, not just the 10% fee they now receive for the ideas, fighting to win the deal and producing these shows.
Internationally, the business of format trading and content sales is worth more than €6 billion (R98 billion), with many successful international shows such as Big Brother being remade on the continent for African viewers.
The SABC is not very good at monetising its content beyond securing on-air sponsorship deals. The broadcaster has sold shows to African broadcasters, but its biggest sale to date has been the deal it struck with DStv in 2014 when it licensed its entire archive to its competitor for a reputed R300 million. It cost the SABC 10 times more to produce the content. So while the deal was a brand success because it reminded cynical middle-class viewers of the SABC’s successes, it was not a financial success for the broadcaster.
Producers are much better at making money from content sales. Some local producers have licensed content overseas and to local airlines.
Africa is a market that the SABC is not even playing in, but there is a lot of desire for South African content. Remember when Sentech closed the terrestrial signal spillover into Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia?
It caused an uproar because these viewers were no longer able to pick up the free SABC signal to watch Generations, Khumbul’ekhaya and Top Billing.
One Zimbabwean viewer tweeted at the time that although South Africans loved to complain about the SABC, they loved the shows because the languages and locations were familiar to them, and the quality was so much better than their own local shows.
If the SABC gave the rights back to producers, they could produce local versions in these African countries and the rest of the world.
Format sales changed the European production industry, and there are producers operating out of Israel and Poland making big money out of small shows that have travelled the world.
Producers could also produce different versions of their shows in, for example, online or gaming environments, where there is audience and advertising growth.
Online retail is another space that could be exploited.
The success of Spree.com has shown that there is a real appetite for local products promoted by trusted local personalities online. Successful companies could merge and invest in infrastructure development in neglected areas.
But the biggest change would be to the level of creativity and innovation in the TV industry. Producers would be out there hustling, finding new ways of telling stories and cheaper ways of producing content, acting like real entrepreneurs.
C’mon, Hlaudi, return all copyright to producers. You know you can.
Setai is a television professional who works for Media24
