SABC drops the ball on TV coverage

Today is the second semi-final of the Cricket World Cup and the national broadcaster, the one which is in such managerial disarray, is not broadcasting the match. Probably the bigger of the two semi-finals to cover, although they would not know that at the time of contract negotiation. What would have happened if the Proteas (by some miracle of nature) had made the second semi-final? Would we have been left TVless?

There is always discussion about pay TV and the national broadcaster, quality vs quantity. In SuperSport we have both — SuperSport broadcasts every major sporting event without fail in FULL — OK we pay more than R600 a month as opposed to the R290 a year for SABC. You do remember the Bafana soccer match played overseas that was not broadcast by SABC? In 2007 the PSL dumped the SABC for SuperSport in a deal worth R1.6 billion over five years and Safa clearly made the decision that perhaps its strategy should alter.

But this is the Cricket World Cup (CWC), not local football. This screams of incompetence and nobody takes accountability from the government-driven body. Eighty percent of the population misses out on watching Sachin Tendulkar — the little boy in the Eastern Cape who has Makhaya Ntini as his bowling hero and Tendulkar as his batting hero.

To not carry the entire knockout section of the CWC is irresponsible. I think South Africans deserve better but unfortunately it seems pretty much anything linked to our government is incompetent and worse more, lacks accountability. It is an embarrassment as a nation. Someone asked me this morning if the SABC could be compared to the Proteas choking, I said “no, the SABC is incompetent, the Proteas just choked”. The Proteas are still a great cricket team, class is permanent, form is temporary. Although they still deserve no mercy for “dropping the ball … ” there is another side to this argument. We have to take responsibility for this as well because we allow it, we do not demand more.

We pay our TV licences (do we?) and accept mediocrity, we accept sub-standard service. We need to act more decisively and hold people to account. You won’t need to do this with SuperSport as there are no gaps, the only issue with them is that most people battle to pay the monthly subscription, that does not deter from their service delivery though.

The SABC should be embarrassed. The emotional card of being the national broadcaster just doesn’t cut it any longer. I have no doubt that plenty of advertising would have been sold around the match, if not, they should’ve made a plan, it’s their job. We don’t expect enough and until we do we’ll be fed this mediocre pudding from the gravy train. The sad thing is, this is becoming the norm …