South Africa / Commonwealth Broadcast Association conference debates the role of broadcasters

South Africa / Commonwealth Broadcast Association conference debates the role of broadcasters

PRETORIA, April 23, 2010/African Press Organization (APO)/ --

The Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Mark Scott, on 20 April 2010 in Johannesburg, took a swipe at opponents of public broadcasters and emphasized the role of public broadcasters in relations to commercial and pay-TV broadcasters in serving the needs of all citizens.

According to a report by the local media Businessday on 21 April 2010, Scott said at the Commonwealth Broadcast Association conference in Johannesburg on 20 April 2010, that independent public broadcasters still had a big role to play in the digital age and a responsibility to deliver programmes the public wanted, but which the market struggled to deliver. Broadcasters such as the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), and the ABC has been the subject of debate about their role, their funding model and whether they should provide services already being provided by commercial broadcasters.

Scott was responding in particular to criticism by James Murdoch, heir apparent to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation empire, that the existence of a government-funded broadcaster - in this case the BBC - was "a threat to pluralism" and was throttling the market. Scott argued that commercial broadcasters "walk away if a product does not deliver profits" because they have no "overarching commitment to journalism as a public good", or holding "government and private institutions accountable".

MISA-Position

In order to add a voice to the debate MISA would like to stress that Public, Commercial, and Community media are all vital as vehicles for information dissemination and are responsible for building an informed society. It is thus imperative to stress the need for each country to open space for the establishment of a three-tier broadcasting system which would give community a free and fair play in exercising their Freedom of Expression Right. This would also eliminate the existing monopolies on broadcasting that exists in the media industry of some countries.

Source: Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)

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