25 August 2009
PRESS RELEASE
MEDIA ALERT: GUERILLA PROTEST ACTION
In a bid to turn itself around, the SABC has stated it will have to axe planned expenditure on local content amounting to R500-million. Their only option is to fill our screens with a massive schedule of repeat programming, which it has been forced to begin. In light of this the TVIEC is continuing with protest action in a bid to save our stories and our industry.
This week writers and actors will take the lead in a visually powerful guerrilla action to send a stark and shocking message to the SABC that the industry is becoming increasingly angry and increasingly desperate as thousands of skilled labourers are without work in an industry that is crucial to job creation and to the dissemination of our national culture, debate and identity.
We are inviting the media to come and document the action and to engage with a select group of picketers who will be telling their stories. Some core players will be present for interviews. Also present will be Michael Lee – who has embarked on a hunger strike in protest at SABC’s slashing of local content. (Lee has entered his 16th day and now other activists within the industry are planning to join him.)
When and Where
Thursday 27 August from 1pm to 1.30pm outside Radio Park
We want to send a message that a country without a platform for its stories will lose its culture, it's power to educate and its power to entertain. It is the job of the public broadcaster to promote our culture and our stories. We need a responsible SABC that will put together a muscular business plan and streamline its management. We believe that an attempt to turn the SABC around by cutting their key product – programming – will cause irreparable damage to the independent production sector and to the SABC’s credibility.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: tvcrisis@gmail.com
This press release is written on behalf of the TVIEC (Television Industry Emergency Coalition) which consists of: IPO (Independent Producers Organization), SASFED (South African Screen Federation), TPA (The Producers Alliance), DFA (Documentary Filmmakers Association), WGSA (Writers Guild of South Africa) as well as the CWU (Creative Workers Union).
