Friday, July 3, 2009

SOS Update: ICASA DTT regulations, Interim Board, finance workshop etc.

The folioing update received from SOS (Edited)

Hello all

Things have been moving swiftly. A new interim board has been put forward by the ANC. The chair is former MTN vice-president Irene Charnley and the deputy is University of South Africa (Unisa) senior political studies lecturer, Philip Mtimkulu. Other board members include media policy expert Libby Lloyd, advocate and head of legal affairs for the Soccer World Cup local organising committee, Leslie Sedibe and former IFP MP and communications committee member, Suzanne Vos. The National Assembly is scheduled to approve the five nominees next week, after which the President will be required to make the appointments. Congratulations Libby!

Also, just to let you know SOS had an extended working group meeting looking at SABC financial issues. We had excellent presentations from Tawana Kupe and Libby Lloyd. I presented some comments and a response from Jane Duncan (ex- executive director of FXI) on the documents. Also, I briefly presented a financial model put forward by Justine Limpitaw at our January 2009 workshop. At the end of the weekend I will be sending a brief summary document that includes the various proposals. Please find linked a number of documents:

- A document on SABC finances prepared by independent producers (SASFED NOTE: This document was incorrectly released on a TVIEC letterhead. It was not endorsed by the TVIEC and is an IPO discussion document at this stage.)

Finally, there was a media briefing this morning at ICASA. Apparently the final Digital Terrestrial Television Regulations have been released. I haven't received a copy yet. Will certainly send you the regulations as soon as I get them.

Warm regards
Kate

Kate Skinner
Campaign Coordinator - Save our SABC