ICASA, SABC tackled over TV programming: report
South Africa’s TV production industry is considering taking legal action over ICASA for its failure to monitor the SABC‘s programming, the City Press reported.
According to the report, the local production industry is set to take the industry regulator to the high court to explain why it has not been monitoring the SABC’s local programming content.
ICASA is legally mandated to issue an annual report on whether the country’s TV channels are delivering on their mandates.
However, the paper reported that ICASA has only issued two such reports – with one of them concluding that the SABC has not delivered enough local programmes.
Action against ICASA is being brought by the South African Screen Federation (Sasfed) and legal representation from the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI).
The bodies said that ICASA has not made any meaningful attempt to investigate the SABC’s failure to report on local content.
The industry is estimated to be losing between R350 million and R500 million, annually, due to a drop in local content commissions.
Sasfed is an umbrella body that represents a number of writers, directors, actors, editors and producers in the local content production industry.
According to the report, the SABC admitted to parliament that local content was an area they had saved money on – not cutting back overheads or staff, but on programming.
ICASA said that it had received and responded to the legal letter from FXI, and would engage with them further, “should a need arise”.
The authority said it only has the capacity to monitor compliance in six month periods, with annual reporting depending on resources available.
ICASA has recenetly made a R10 million investment in better broadcast monitoring equipment, the report said.
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