SuperSport TV, the paying channel, who decided that vernacular commentators will have to do their jobs via the feed in Randburg and not at the stadiums, has been heavily criticised.
SuperSport announced a decision last week that all vernacular commentators will have to do their job in Randburg and not at the stadiums.
This is due to cost cutting measures by the broadcaster to transport them to various games around the country.
For them to be at the stadiums midweek in the second games of the DStv Premiership it resumed post the FIFA World Cup, it was the last time and this coming weekend, all roads lead to Randburg to do their work off tv.
As much as this is the case, some feel it was never a well-thought decision.
“Why don’t they cut for everyone?,” said the source.
“Why are they targeting vernacular? If you are saying you are looking at the cost, the crew that goes to a match, the average is around 65 people. But you only cut two out of the whole crew, where are you saving the money?
“Phumlani Miya, (who is a IsiZulu commentator from Durban), is coming down to Jo’burg to do matches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. They will have to book a hotel for him for those days and you say you are cutting the cost?
“How do you cut money out of that arrangement?”
Baffling, three big games this weekend are in Durban, starting with Richards Bay hosting Mamelodi Sundowns on Friday, Golden Arrows vs SuperSport United on Saturday and Sunday Royal AM host AmaZulu, but Miya will do these games in Randburg.
“It can’t be right,” added the source.
Meanwhile, the Progressive Professionals Forum (PPF) “which represents mainly the country’s middle strata and the nation at large” has released a statement in abhorring SuperSport to have taken such a decision.
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“It is really inconceivable that in this day and age of the country’s democracy, some of the media houses like SuperSport pay TV channel which generates maximum profits through subscriptions mainly from the middle strata and the nation at large treats the majority of black citizens and Africans in the main as the second class citizens in their own country,” says PPF Deputy President Steven Ngubeni
“PPF views this decision as an affront especially to the Black and African subscribers to SuperSport pay TV channel all of whom are the proud South Africans who are free and confident to express themselves in their indigenous and or vernacular languages (spoken and or written).
“PPF does not at all buy into a reasoning provided by the management of SuperSport pay TV channel that this was a ‘business decision’.
“Any entity private or public which operates in a given territory has to recognise and respect the highest laws of such a country including the established bodies protecting the values, principles and practices of a country’s constitution.
“Therefore SuperSport pay TV channel is not exempt at all in the sense that any business sound decision it makes seeking to affect the society it serves must take into account interalia cultural contextual factors, social cohesion agenda, etc.
“At no point SuperSport pay TV channel must use an argument of cost cutting as a reason and yet in that process the country’s indigenous languages which have popularised the channel are now relegated to a second class while promoting English as a super language.”
At the same time Ngubeni has warned SuperSport.
“That SuperSport pay TV channel immediately retracts its decision failing which PPF shall not hasten to engage necessary Chapter Nine Bodies to file a complaint in terms of establishing whether such a ‘business decision’ does not encroach on the rights of SuperSport pay TV channel subscribers especially the Black and African ones,” Ngubeni said.
“Secondly, PPF shall also not hasten to mobilise the country’s progressive voices to put a stop on such a decision which perpetuates the inferiority of the consumers of indigenous languages.
“PPF does have confidence in the management of SuperSport pay TV channel that sanity will prevail by retracting this instruction immediately.”
Story by Robin-Duke Madlala (@duke_robin).
