South African Broadcasting Corporation

The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is the public broadcaster in South Africa, and provides 19 radio stations ( AM/ FM) as well as six television broadcasts to the general public. It is one of the largest of South Africa's state-owned enterprises.

Opposition politicians and civil society often criticise the SABC, accusing it of being a mouthpiece for whichever political party is in majority power, thus currently the ruling African National Congress; during the apartheid era it was accused of playing the same role for the National Party government.

Company history

Early years

Radio broadcasting in South Africa began in 1923, under the auspices of South African Railways, before three radio services were licensed: the Association of Scientific and Technical Societies (AS&TS) in Johannesburg, the Cape Peninsular Publicity Association in Cape Town and the Durban Corporation, which began broadcasting in 1924.

These merged into the African Broadcasting Company in 1927, owned by, I. W. Schlesinger, a wealthy businessman, but on 1 August 1936, they were sold to the SABC, established that year through an Act of Parliament.''Introduction to Public Relations and Advertising''
D F du Plessis,
Juta and Company Ltd, 2000 page 89 The SABC took over the African Broadcasting Company's staff and assets. It maintained a state monopoly on radio until the launch in December 1979 of Capital Radio 604, then Radio 702 in 1980.''South African media policy: debates of the 1990s''
P. Eric Louw, Anthroppos, 1993, page 99 Although the subscription-funded television service M-Net launched in 1986, the SABC had a monopoly on free-to-air television until the launch of e.tv in 1998.

During National Party rule from 1948, it came under increasing accusations of being biased towards the ruling party. At one time most of its senior management were members of the Broederbond, the Afrikaner secret society and later from institutions like Stellenbosch University.

The SABC was a radio service until the introduction of television in 1976. There were three main SABC radio stations: the English Service (later known as Radio South Africa), the Afrikaans Service (later known as Radio Suid-Afrika and Afrikaans Stereo) and the commercial station, Springbok Radio.

Programmes on the English and Afrikaans services mainly consisted of news; plays such as ''The Forsyte Saga'', ''Story of an African Farm'', and ''The Summons'', written and produced in South Africa; serious talk shows; BBC radio shows; children's programmes, such as ''Sound Box''; and light music featuring South African orchestras, arrangers, musicians and singers. Accomplished musicians such as pianist and composer Charles Segal featured on all three stations regularly in shows like ''Piano Playtime''. Accordionist Nico Carstens was a regular on the Afrikaans programmes.

Recent history

On 4 February 1996, two years after the ANC came to power, the SABC reorganised its three TV channels, so as to be more representative of different language groups. This resulted in the downgrading of Afrikaans by reducing its airtime from 50% to 15%, a move that alienated many Afrikaans speakers.

The SABC has since been accused of favouring the ruling ANC party, mostly in news. It remains dominant in the broadcast media.

Criticism intensified around 2003–2005, when it was accused of a wide range of shortcomings including self-censorship, lack of objectivity and selective news coverage.

On 20 October 2020, SABC and the government were in discussion to get TV and streaming providers in South Africa to collect TV licence on their behalf.

On 27 March 2021, SABC and eMedia Investments expanded their partnership which allowed OpenView customers to receive 3 additional channels as well as their 19 radio stations.

Leaders

Director General of the SABC:

Chairman of the SABC Board:

Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Radio

Establishment

Following its establishment in 1936, the SABC established services in what were then the country's official languages, English and Afrikaans, with the Afrikaans service being established in 1937.RSG celebrates 75 years
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SABC, 29 March 2012, Broadcasts in languages such as Zulu, Xhosa, Sesotho and Tswana followed in 1940.

Springbok Radio

Springbok Radio, the SABC's first commercial radio service, started broadcasting on 1 May 1950.''Broadcasting in South Africa''
Keyan G. Tomaselli
Currey, 1989, page 197 Bilingual in English and Afrikaans, it broadcast from the Johannesburg Centre for hours a week. The service proved to be so popular with advertisers that at the time of its launch, commercial time had been booked well in advance.

The station featured a wide variety of programming, such as morning talk and news, game shows, soap operas like ''Basis Bravo'', children's programming, music request programmes, top-ten music, talent shows and other musical entertainment. One popular Saturday noontime comedy show was ''Telefun Time'', whose hosts would phone various people and conjure up situation comedy, a similar brand of humour to the films of Leon Schuster.

By 1985, Springbok Radio was operating at a heavy loss. After losing many listeners with the handing over of its shortwave frequencies to Radio 5 and facing competition from television, it ceased broadcasting on 31 December 1985.

SABC News Service

The News Service was established in June 1950, replacing the programmes of the BBC
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