Towards Sustaining Developed Audiences

Towards Sustaining Developed Audiences – Media is SA

I should outline from the onset that these thoughts I am about to give claim not to be a ‘common sense approach’ to understanding how media relates to democracy…but I will innocuously attempt to reveal what I feel are their links of inter-dependence. I wish also to explore whether the two ideals have converged as tools for public interest appropriation. Whether the interests entrenched by the sector are purely monopolistic in their development and executive mandates.

Media as a civil society institution plays a critical role in shaping human consciousness in relation to particular interests, but the question becomes…whose interests? There has been evidence of flawed democratic sentiments from all over the globe with regard to media democratization, these being in direct contention to the concepts of representative democracy as a norm to date. The notion of governance by the people has honed the problem of whether this governance is by those represented due to class privilege or truly all those who partook in suffrage? Is this form of democracy being modeled into governance of/by the elite?

Media can also reveal dichotomic paradigms as highlighted by Clive Emdon in his FXI Lectures, these being canonized by the separateness of world media representation between poles of the First World of the modern, free market economy, owned by upper and middle class elites and that which can be defined as Third World of marginalized masses, those who truly strive to use media as a tool for development and advancement. Sadly, the latter section of the consumer populace has been trivialized and over-ridden by the interests of the owners of various ports of expression, considering that government now sees attempting the use of First World economic strategies to develop Third World economies a global pre-requisite for success. This has proven to be an incarnate diabolical top-down communication approach employed even in the media sector, creating the conflict situation of people on the ground not partaking in decision-making/trend setting.

Media accessibility has been a class-privilege for a long time in South Africa, so the question arises of whether socially-built consensus of interest takes into account the possibility that centralized interests being punted and reinforced by the elite-section of civil society inclines minorities on having more power of expression than others, thus homogenizing interests. This implies pre-selection and construction of information for audiences as determined by those with enough muscle power behind Media Institutions – homogenizing interest through systematic manufacture of propaganda under the guise of facts. Prepackaging information for micro-market profit as seen by these self-delegated public commentators has been argued as a pre-requisite for a globalistic perspective necessary in this millennium. Thus, we find aspirations towards what can be called the globalization of information channels shared by profiteers… and this, in contemporary society they have achieved as more information is packaged for specialized audiences.
Society at large now yearns for the unattainable as expressed by its doctored lusts, their interests and life-styles having morphed to suite the criteria of the elite as designed through homogenous reality-definitions.

Private media institutions such as Johnnic/Avusa, Media24, ETV, MultiChoice and other major broadcasters and holding companies can nowadays rival any state-sponsored public media institution and even community media movements…information being no longer a public asset. This advent within the free market system has proven itself a democratized method of homogenous information flow that transcends national boundaries/state monopolies and any ideal of personal freedom, be of expression or other natural right. This private media sector seems characterized by the precedent monopolization of telecommunications leading to a violation of the right to receive and impart information. While universal access to information remains a far fetched dream for most African countries, the present pace with which information systems are being deregulated will ensure that cost will rise, as with all specializations within the sector.

Only a few will be privileged with regard to concentrated ownership of the by-products of the sector considering that fewer people are engaged in control of more and more information.

This so-called ‘electronic democracy’ we keep hearing about; how is it to transpire where information does not flow freely. The convergence of broadcasting and telecommunications and the wider exposure of the internet have not heralded the utopian information dissemination we dreamt up yet.

But, there is also the problem of markets censoring themselves, through limited exposure to a variety of information; this has been achieved through inflated selectivity/niche complexes. With this insidious reduction of diversity in media products we are finding glitches in the promises of democratization in the media. We start seeing consumer control through selective marketing of certain information/media by-products, thus the resultant westernization of most indigent reality-definitions which serves to set aside each human pride in natural diversity of opinion.

A Report issued by the Digital Freedom Network states:
Broadcasting is an integral part of Africa’s development and a means of communication over the vast areas of the continent. Improvements in broadband infrastructure and the emergence of Third Generation (3G) mobile systems are now opening the way to convergence of digital media and telecommunications. With far greater ownership of TV sets compared to PCs in Africa, the broadcasters' viewers represent a huge potential customer base for Internet services as well. Interactive TV, especially the variety using mobile phone text messages (SMS), has found its way to Africa and is growing fast. The Personal Video Recorder (PVR) was introduced in South Africa in 2005 and will become available in other African countries in 2006.

At least four African countries are currently trialing or planning to introduce Broadband TV and Video-on-Demand services, typically converged with voice and data services under so-called Triple-Play models.
This should be great news for all sectors of media, but the incurred problem is that of accessibility to these cherished technologies necessary for the transition. There is talk of conversions to align local broadcast materials to DIGITAL standards, predictions about dual decoding mechanisms which are optional for audiences; all this becoming sedative epitaphs employed when the bulk of discrepant realities are overlooked.
What will this transition mean for production of content suitable for such formats of telecommunication? What will be the congruently beneficial factor with regard to democratization of such technologies? Who will afford this new technology?
Are existing portals of distribution sufficiently equipped within the perimeters of our continent’s economic capabilities? What does the advent of neo-liberalization of media mean for South Africa? These and other question I will attempt to deal with in the following pages, from a perspective and capable knowledge that does not claim solutions nor mechanisms which have a proven track-record - but, bearing the hope that these can form part of newer strategies towards media for development that is sustainable.
Before explicitly delving into the crux of conditions ushered in by Globalization and its neo-liberalization of most creative practices; I would like to offer a brief overview of a case study conducted over a period of time while I was exposed to some enlightening literature about African Cinema. Below is a critical outline of certain extreme modalities which were employed by elite strategists in Arabophone countries, and their policy-making which led to the extinction if not the crippling of one of the most vibrant cinema cultures on the African continent.
ELECTRONIC DEMOCRACY.
• An overview of SA Film Industry Fragmentation.

The starvation of project development processes has ushered forth an advent of skills-for-sale attitude that transudes in the industry’s work force, and many factors have been both cause and effect of this weakness. First, there is a lack of effective processes of weeding out projects with no realistic prospect of social relevance and commerciality – result, lack of capital for reinvestments in project development for future productions. Cabals form in the midst of this cultural stagnation, with mushrooming sects proclaiming auteurist tendencies, multiple production houses seeming to monopolize marginal genres in the name of their universal appeal. Fragmented practices/mechanisms of identity expression ensue, falsifications occur for the sake of commercial palatability, and other detrimental individualisms begin to take hold of the sector to an extend that it solely becomes a platform for personal enrichment. Cinema for Profit.

The concern is on the part of benefit from such exclusive ventures going elsewhere, than towards a collective wealth of cultural information, but to other bodies intrinsic in production links. The term ‘production’ from my perspective involves the creation of a whole value added in a film project, inclusive of the costs of doing business.
In any industry, the true cost of value added includes the cost of equity and debt and those costs of services such as legal, financial which are critical to the business of creating film projects. But such merits have been eroded by self-centered producer/artist sentiments fueled by the craving for capital affluence. Most of the ventures undertaken under these Cinema-for-Profit merits are signified by nepotistic collaborations, financial mismanagements, and overall leakages which tend to be the fatal blows when completion of projects is concerned.

These forms of fragmentation have crippled the narrative cinema culture and replaced it with the cult of stylization employed by creative practitioners when bastardized by a consumerist commercial industry. Temporary ventures such as entertainment series, reality shows, game-shows, sports, studio talk shows and the like have absorbed a great pool of creative practitioners and taken centre stage as the primary output of the South Africa Film Industry.


In reality many South African productions remain scarce, either obscure and solely representative of High Art aspirations of auteurism (looking for instance at locally produced feature films like Tsotsi and Hijack Stories); and it should be noted however that in our supposed quest towards crossing linguistic zones and accessing a broader market, a homogenization of expression through language might retard the output of indigenous language cinema, thus hampering the representational capacity of cinema in identity formation and communication.

Further fragmentation is still inevitable as we are beginning to see during this epoch of globalization through communications technologies, whereby cultural by-products that are poignant decline in numbers and frequency of output. Specialized technologies such as the internet(as a content portal as opposed to broadband content portal) have overtaken the exhibition monopolists of the previous century and in fact proliferated uncontrollable access to virtually any information, but as noted in the pages above the idea of electronic democracy… where does it feature when all information is being allotted to a homogenous cultural pool, close knit through language – English; and other western trends so punted through the audio-visual medium?
This brings me to another question concerning the crucial importance of the cultural dimension greatly reinforced by most African Filmmakers who aimed to counter the overwhelming influence of Western cultural values. How does a homogenous form of expression transmit identities which are transient and in constant reformation through their dynamic linguistic realities?

Further questions that arise therefore become those about distribution of such essential information to the underprivileged and mechanisms of countering commercial distribution by means of competitive selective systems. What other automatic systems aught be in place that can continue to reward success to information dissemination required at grass-root market-levels on linguistic terms relevant to their reality-definitions?
How does the South African Cinema industry impact indigenous knowledge systems’ dissemination?

In this regard, Rishile Bosele Mutlimedia’s audience development strategy still remains a pivotal blue-print for further creation of networks that are mandated with alternate channels of information dissemination. But their impact alone cannot counter the flow of subaltern cultural products into our national/continental territory as has been the norm thus far. Collaborative linkages based on sound commercial logic still need to be encouraged and nurtured in the industry’s project-chains.

Over the next four/five years South Africa could see an emergence of a highly competitive distribution and access sector. Technological innovations might remove most barriers to entry and direct intervention ensuring consumer access to a broader choice of distribution systems; also enabling a switch between these systems relatively effortlessly and at a lower cost. However, I foresee certain negative consequences for content creation and provision. With the markets easily accessible by content providers, with their distribution systems desperate for the best content; the overall level of risk for investors in new content creation will increase exponentially.

Overall investment in indigenous content will diminish; value would migrate to tried and tested content dynamics (football, game shows, programme archives and B-grade Hollywood rejects) rather than new productions. Even when investment is made available towards the creation of indigenous content, that money would merely flow to those few players who can claim brands created long before the era of new suppliers. Some producers would likely merge and consolidate in order to provide the stability and risk pooling that no one distribution system can provide in the competitive battle for the consumers’ time. The precariousness of consumer-based income for content providers will in addition force them to seek alternative sources of funds; may it be through advertising spaces or brand placements in their productions. The matter of consumer protection might explode into legal wrangles, but ultimately plurality will be reduced.

Without media pluralism, the consumer will have less access to diverse cultural perspectives; will be plugged onto homogenous yet broadly dispersed information portals.
Now, this returns us to the premise of Electronic Democracy…what are my understandings?

In spite of successes in recent years, the South African film industry has encountered a number of weaknesses which must be addressed if it is to advance to a new phase of development. With its strong literary tradition, there still appears to be a difficulty in adapting our literary skills to visual media. A lack of visual storytelling capacity characterized by the nature of our cinematic output’s lack of appeal to other narrative traditions of the world is a handicap resultant from exhausted reservoirs of our self-knowledge and analysis. We have become vicarious characters within a dream-play about departures, the mirror through which to reflect our identity being merely cloned to create suited replications of other worldliness and fantasy.

There can be no negation of the fact that we also suffer from an insufficiency of creative talents in the fields of scriptwriting and project development; and this will forever plague our modest successes with uncertainty, especially when it comes to reinvestments into new projects. The lack of business and managerial skills; the matter of film production houses being administered as small corporate entities thus becoming under-equipped to undertake international marketing and the distributions facets after the project completion which seem plagued by symptoms of under-developed market intelligence. These and many other constraints are glaring at the industry, more especially in the face of no focused investment and expansion of new creative skills. The detriment augured is that of stagnation in product output and the death of indigenous knowledge systems in the face of homogenous information exchanges.

But before dealing with the perceived effects of electronic democracy versus homogeneity will have with regard to freedom of expression, I would first like to address some ideas around strategic systems which have being formerly employed thus reinvented within the South African cinema distribution industry at its present stage in its evolution.

This reactionary zeal is in part fueled and based on a simple analogy expressed by a former lecturer of mine when still in film school that ‘ …under the Apartheid Government cinema flourished because of certain tax incentives which were legislated to sponsor growth of local content creation capacity and training required to sustain the industry as it was essential tool then.’
What other models can be referential in planning our own way forward in the face of globalization and competitive markets? I should admit that the models I will expound on draw from tested international models and apply to most broadcasting situations under any applicable legislation.

Tax-based Incentives.

Incentive-led subsidy schemes have been adopted by various industries in the world; and mostly those who were feeling the brunt of western cinema monopolies on their local markets. These incentives were mainly derived from taxation on all box-office sales of Western Films (France still has a quota legislating and ensuring this), other tax resources were directly sourced from the public basket which often tends to be neglectful of the arts and cultural products of a society. In 1997 Ireland ranked No.8 within the European Union in the number of feature films it produced – a creditable performance considering the youth of its film industry and its size. The Union drew from reserves widely ranging from State Aid, tax based incentives, soft loans, grants, guarantee funds and so-called automatic systems which reward success to a home market. But that was not all, because the culture of dependency on subvention and production would drive the industry down-hill – hampering diversification and solid growth. They then introduced programmes to monitor the dispensation of the financial accumulations resultant of these localized models and thus began to diversify the utilization of such reserves in creative ways.

The focus was placed on training, development and distribution. It operated through a range of intermediary initiatives which negotiated for emphasis on commerciality, attention being drawn to exhibition and trans-national distribution channels. The commercial imperative of the development of a stronger film industry imposed the systematic strategy of selective supports operating on a competitive basis. Best projects from distributors and producers we infused into collaborative linkages with the corporate sector; these and other models assisted the Irish Film Industry reach its pivot within the time-frame of the EU MEDIA Programmes’ formation in 1990.

By their nature, tax incentives of course meant a sharing of benefits between different parties, and unless there is some sharing of benefits there would be no function for them.

Irish Film Industry was thus capacitated with a pool of talent and commercial acumen that propelled it to heights rivaling the British Film Industry. It had nurtured creativity through training initiatives; and rooted in the passion towards the impulse to utter their stories, the principal of their incentives became centered on Irish Language development and thus ensuring adherence to local content mandates.
Self-consciousness as sprouted from their local artists’ commitment to cultural identity and diversification became a source of pride. Irish language film making contributed to their radical perspective which was both worthy in its own right and contributed to Irish Cultural Mosaic. This was done with no regard for cultural defensiveness; art had to be shared. Artistic creations by Irish Film Artists began to express ‘Ireland in the world’ in ways that engaged with the world. Representational federations were formed by the creative-practitioners of the industry; without the false dichotomy which pervades most industries – that of Art Cinema versus Popular cinema.

Despite Irish Language cinema being prevalent mostly on television, there was adequate support lobbied with local broadcasters who provided the market for such productions. A greater flexibility and scope for original programming on television began to take toll and thus commanding serious audiences within their own cultural and linguistic areas. The tax incentives also assisted to strengthen the producers’ ability to access local airwaves, another mandate which Rishile Bosele is embracing in the nature of other global revolutionary activities towards public broadcaster synergies dedicated to Public Interest Television objectives which would benefit African and other independently produced films and media products.

The models outlined above can agreeably be prevalent in the South African Cinema Industry, and they are. There is SACOD, and recently FEPACI which has mandates and continental responsibilities; also SASFED as a federation for the protection of various laws applicable to intellectual/creative property. And also FRU had been playing pivotal roles in all these initiatives, ensuring their continued competitive edge within a competitive market system. Within the mandates of SASFED we observe a sustained closer monitoring of broadcasters. The matter of power to institute penalties or sanctions if local content is side-lined have been tabled I hope. But where to now, or rather perhaps - where from henceforth?


• Are annual reviews of the findings of these monitoring federations keeping the broadcasters’ compliance with public interest mandates?
• Are we seeing an increase in fixed annual co-production agreements?
• Are the initiatives lobbying government stringently enough to forge sustained co-production agreements with broadcasters, production companies and other relevant government departments with the view of increasing the amount of content produced and distributed for local and international markets?
• Have there been effective relationships established with the private sector to access funds for the industry?
• Are we seeing an increase in production capacity development, i.e. training?
• What innovative fund disbursements have been approaches that are envisioned?
• What constraints are hindering the establishment of Distribution–led Productions?

Rishile Bosele Multimedia’s responsibilities in the context of South African Cinema Industry.
My Views.

• Script Development – Making available to producers various scripts through access to SASWU, SEDIBA Programme and other resources.
• Advice on high quality script development with the orientation towards Indigenous language appeal and the prospects of commercial viability of the final products.
• Providing Development Fundraising models at a level that can support sustained developments of scripts.
• Develop strategic business interventions in liaison with existing agencies such as the NFVF. This function would include devising new methods of financing the industry while developing relationships with international distributors and broadcasters.
• Generic marketing – This forms positions in the market which are of accessibility even within a competitive market. Inter-programme linkages such as the one with GFC should sell South Africa as a filmmaking Location.
• Training expertise is required for the market we are developing and sustaining. CAC Workshops, distribution courses and the like are of essential strategic business development for The Film Industry.
• Coordination with the Television Broadcasting Sector of synergies around matters of co-productions, distribution of commissioned projects (Heartlines for instance as has been with Project 10)
• Technological Foresight and Policy Development with regard to the impact of new technologies on the industry, their accessibility to a broader audience and in liaison with appropriate agencies formulate models that are centered on the aforementioned idea of Electronic Democracy.

But for any distribution entity to execute such responsibilities, it will first need to receive some pointers on effective strategic development.

In the continuously competitive arena of Public Interest Film Distribution, we now observe that a need for flexibility and capacity to respond to market changes is essential. Not mere operational effectiveness which could entail reactionary tendencies with regard to other practitioners mimicking our strategies. The quest for productivity, quality and speedy deliveries has ushered new ideas around effective management. The rule of aggressive outsourcing to gain efficiencies, the drive to competitiveness in the race to stay ahead and strategic positioning of brands in dynamic markets confronted by rapidly changing technologies have collectively changed the rules of the game once thought as stagnant. Total quality management, time-based competition, partnering, re-engineering and even change of management have become common strategic devices to increase profitability and superior performance in a company.

Any company can outperform any competition if a difference is established, not just through a change of operational activities because this form of contingency activity-led management is dysfunctional. Despite dramatic operational changes, many companies have been frustrated by their inability to translate any gain into sustainable profitability. What is needed then is change of activities, capturing unique competitive edges through inter-linked affiliations while sustaining a unique profile. Strategy lies here, choosing a different set of activities and positioning the activities in relation to perceived market requirements. But should we then strive towards need-based positioning alone?

My answer is no.

If strategy stems from a creation and sustenance of a valuable position in the market, then it follows that access should feature. Access-based positioning has proven that competition can be fended off by different sets of activities directed at diverse positions in a market.
Rishile Bosele Multimedia screening in Townships, schools and Beer-halls – this exhibition service has been our niche profile, but it also requires trade-offs to sustain its impact. Having chosen a position does not guarantee sustainable advantage as it also attracts imitations by incumbents considering the lack of fixed and ideal position in any market.

While operational effectiveness can achieve excellence in individual activities, strategy should be about combining activities, inter-linking activities. This can lock out competition. When Media Forums or Festivals and Outreach programmes produce a catalogue of African Films synopsis for Video/DVD sales purposes, the same product can be a catalogue for agent training.
A training manual used for capacity building for video/DVD sub-distributors can be a concise literary journal with information on Audio-Visual Practices, brief histories and articles on developments in African and World Cinema. And all these can function as promotional tools in Branding and Profile advancement processes.

Now, with all the responsibilities I envision for Rishile Bosele Multimedia, would they be achieved with mere operational effectiveness? Would the executions sustain the company when it still needs product differentiation with powerful branding?
Capital requirements are any company’s nemesis yes; but Rishile Bosele Multimedia has redressed the economy of scale with regard to its activities and this has allowed for transparency.

Together with these questions I would like to close the paper by saying… With stringent strategies I see Rishile Bosele Multimedia taking their revolution beyond continental borders. I envision a Distributor of Third World Cinema capable of rivaling any monopolies so insidiously bastardizing world-minds with homogenous perspectives. I see diversification of information being one area Rishile Bosele Multimedia can spear-head. Innovative management techniques and commercial prudence will propel the company to heights that no broadcaster would ignore considering the capacity to penetrate areas where most media does not dare venture.

Yours,

Paul Zisiwe