Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 01-02-2018
Advocacy group Media Monitoring Africa says it’s not a good idea to shutdown a media house whether their views are agreed upon or not.
MMA was commenting on the decision by broadcaster Multichoice not to renew its contract with former Gupta owned television station, ANN7 when it expires in August due to “ongoing controversies”.
MultiChoice has been accused of paying millions of Rands to ANN7 to allegedly influence the country’s long-stalled digital migration from analogue TV, a claim they both deny.
CEO Calvo Mawela on Wednesday said they are enthusiastic about replacing the ANN7 channel soon with the opening of the bidding process for a new black-owned news channel.
Media Monitoring Africa’s Thandi Smith says as allegedly biased as ANN7 are, there was knowledge of the bias, the ownership structures and the intention behind the media house.
Smith says while Multichoice was under pressure by the ANN7 issue, the broadcaster has not given clear reasons for the termination of the contract.
“They’ve said that they’ve made mistakes and that there are issues and procedural issues, but they are not being transparent about what those are. So we are left sitting with far more questions after the press conference than we had beforehand.”
Smith says the media space in South Africa is going through challenging times.
“We still enjoy massive amounts of relatively free media, we have brilliant journalists and really good reporting. But on the other hand, were dealing with big massive issues such as media monopolies, dodgy news and misinformation campaigns and the spread of those around social media.”
ANN7 can reapply for a new channel on DStv after its contract comes to end in August.
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