Comment Requested on ICASA's Draft Regulations

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has published draft regulations and the Position Paper on the commissioning of independently produced South African programming. The draft regulations and the Position Paper follow the publication of the Discussion Document and the holding of public hearings on Commissioning of Independently Produced South African Programming.



The Authority has now invited interested parties who wish to make written representations on the draft regulations (but not the Position Paper) to submit such representations to ICASA by no later than 16h00 on 04th AUGUST 2009. So this affects you directly.

For more information, visit the ICASA website.

SABC responds to TVEIC

Also on ScreenAfrica is the SABC's formal response to the Memorandum of Demands presented to it by the TV Industry Emergency Coalition (TVIEC) at the national protest action on 4 June

Amongst the claims of support for the Local Industry, SABC claims to have increased the local content budget from R230million to R1.1 billion, and increased the ratios of international to local production from 60:40 to 30:70. It also claims a role in the growth of an independent production sector from 20 companies 2004 to 408 in 2009.



Here's the kicker though: "To ensure diversification of companies doing business with SABC, the SABC is preferentially procuring in the regions other than Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Western Cape."

Wow. So they are diverting commission AWAY from KZN?? Wouldn't that kind of assume that KZN was receiving a bumper crop of productions in the first place???? Read the whole response here and let me know what you think.

A Tale of Two Cities

How about this for a commissioning trend to watch? Time Magazine has a story on Gaza - Sderot: Life Inspite of Everything, the French-made multimedia documentary about everyday life on either side of the Gaza-Israeli border.

Though funded by the French-German television channel Arte, Gaza-Sderot was created for the internet, reversing the typical order in which films are shown on television and then posted online. While filming the two crews uploaded daily stories of about five minutes each on the production's website..... The 52 minute documentary was edited from these hours of video postings.