Legislation: New community broadcasting licensing process begins

The process of issuing new community sound broadcasting service licences began yesterday, with an invitation to submit pre-registration ‘notices’ by 31 March 2020, reports Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch.  According to the media statement announcing this, each prospective new licensee whose notice meets all the requirements of revised community service broadcasting regulations in place since March will then have 30 days to apply to register. The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) has undertaken to issue a licence within 30 working days of receipt of each application.

Icasa lifted its 2015 moratorium on new applications in July, on completion of the process of revising regulations with the aim of addressing sector-wide governance and operational deficiencies – including an ‘over-reliance’ on advertising revenue. Along with poor financial management and technical capacity, compliance ‘challenges’ and fierce competition over limited resources, this was feeding increasingly negative perceptions in media planning circles about the reliability and professionalism of community broadcasting services – and the size and economic profile of their audiences, particularly in rural areas.

There have been no further pronouncements from Planning, Monitoring & Evaluation and Communications & Digital Technologies Ministers Jackson Mthembu and Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams on interventions they were apparently considering in October to avoid the ‘shut down of non-compliant community radio stations’ allegedly threatened by Icasa. In the Ministers’ view, the ‘community media sector’ plays an important ‘catalytic development role’ in ‘advancing social cohesion’ by offering an ‘alternative voice’ on key issues. This notwithstanding, the sector should comply with the relevant legislative requirements – utilising ‘existing support mechanisms’ provided by Icasa and the Media Development and Diversity Agency.