"In Italy for thirty years under the
Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they
produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In
Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of
democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo
clock."
— Harry Lime to Holly Martins in 'The Third Man'
(1949)
A NEW TV channel was launched last week. And it's got me excited enough to stick my neck out and proclaim that this event will probably go down in history as the single most important development in the evolution of mass media on the continent this century.
No, no, no. I'm not talking about e-tv, (nice though the party may have been). The likes of Duma ka Ndlovu, Clarence Ford, and Kenny Maistry interspersed with massive doses of Oprah, Magic Johnson, and Baywatch clones may make a change from 1, 2, 3, and M-Net, but is hardly earth-shattering.
The channel is SABC Africa which opened without much fanfare last Monday, November 16. The 24 hour news and information channel began broadcasting through MultiChoice's DStv.
Allister Sparks, news commander at Auckland Park, said the event was like the birth of a baby shark. It's a good analogy. Sharks, once born, have to keep moving lest they asphyxiate. And SABC Africa has flung itself into the world of 24 hour broadcasting and hit the ground running. It's mission is to be to Africa what CNN (and to a lesser extent, the BBC) have become to the first world.
"SABC Africa will bring African news to Africa, from Africa," said Sparks' press release. "It will not only limit itself to catastrophe reporting, but will include development stories and good news.
"Initially SABC Africa will have a higher proportion of South African news stories as it introduces itself to the rest of the continent, but as the news-gathering infrastructure grows, the ratio of African stories will increase."
The move by the SABC to open up news coverage on the continent could not have been better timed. MultiChoice's DStv has very quickly established itself throughout the continent, particularly with sports coverage through SuperSport. News coverage however has been hampered by the fact that MultiChoice does not have its own news gathering operation, and has had to rely on CNN, BBC, and Sky.
Expansion of SABC's South African news gathering operation into the rest of the continent might have come a lot earlier had the corporation not wasted years with its own financially disastrous venture into satellite broadcasting through the analogue AstraSat service.
This could be just the start. The SABC will now be able to go after cable and satellite operators throughout the world as potential customers. There is a very real possibility that hotel rooms throughout the world could soon be offering SABC Africa alongside CNN.
In the past week, SABC Africa has very quickly become my favourite TV channel. The programming has been fairly predictable. The quality of newsreading has been shaky and erratic.
But there is a very real thrill in seeing Africa being thrust firmly into the spotlight for the first time. Simple things such as seeing Graeme Hart's weather monologue against a backdrop of a satellite map of the continent is a kick in the seat of the pants. The world's second largest continent has not had a regular weather forecast until now.
Sparks was upbeat on the morning of the launch, telling SAfm listeners that by reflecting not only the worst, but also the best of Africa to itself, SABC Africa will serve to nurture and stimulate emerging democracies.
This may sound trite, but is well said. Close to a half-million people were killed in Rwanda just four years ago before the world sat up and took notice. The conflict in the former Zaire continues to claim lives. Perhaps if we look more closely and regularly at those who share this continent with us, there will be less of a chance that injustice will continue to hide. This will no longer be a dark continent.