/ 25 November 2008

New Master, new voice

It looks like we’ll get a new SABC board so this column will be about the possibilities such change presents. But first, let me tell you why I’m a bad son.

I come from a small, odd family. And my parents didn’t care for common sense in raising me and my only sister. The big stuff didn’t bother them: not once were we warned off drugs, the devil’s music or sex with truck drivers. Instead, they sweated the small stuff. The little things that separated us from the beasts and the neighbours.

Luckily, there were only three rules to remember. Three lines never to be crossed. Three Thou-Shalt-Nots:

Never lock the keys in the car or the house.

Never return library books late.

And finally, never, ever pay for television.

Disappointing them was inevitable. It’s the way it must be.

Today, Joburg’s locksmiths all know me by name and the books I’ve owed the central library since June last year will never be returned. The way things are going, I might as well go ahead and have sex with a truck driver.

It’s that third rule, though. That one I’ll never break. Pay-TV — be it terrestrial or satellite — is to me now what it was to my parents. Excessive. Exclusive. Bourgeois.

Now, I live like the damned poor because my damn parents indoctrinated me so. Everybody else has buckets and buckets of TV channels. I have four. Three of those are provided by the SABC.

The wretched, smelly poor and I both would very much like a better SABC board. And a better SABC.

Of course, it will be chosen for its bootlicking abilities. I’ve come to accept that and you should too. But think beyond blacklists, editorial policy and the new variety of partisan cheese they’ll be serving up at news time. Good can still come of this.

So, herewith, a sentence using the word ”herewith”.

And herewith further: a short list of things that need changing at our very own Aunty Boob.

  • Dub
  • We applaud the courage of a state broadcaster fresh out of the Dark Days allowing children’s TV to be hosted by what must have surely been the first 3D-animated, extraterrestrial, openly gay continuity presenter in the history of the planet.

    But enough already.

    It’s been a decade and a half without a refresh. The inflatable fantasy world of SABC2’s Tube is as tired and gloomy as last weekend’s party balloons.

    Our children deserve better.

    A flesh-and-blood children’s continuity presenter would by now be making us all feel uncomfortable on the cover of FHM, presenting an ad for a garden hose that puts itself away, or in rehab getting off the meth.

  • Tuesday: Wrist-cutting night
  • It’s been a programming tradition established in the 1980s — Tuesday night is when you will most certainly not be entertained.

    When I was a kid, it was the damn simulcast. Always starting late. Always out of sync.

    Tuesday nights would be spent watching TJ Hooker voiced by the cast of Liewe Heksie. It’s disturbing to a child, watching William Shatner channel Karel Kat.

    Today, it’s Special Assignment‘s duty to make Tuesday nights feel uneasy and strange.

    In fact, it’s Tuesday night as I write this and from behind my laptop screen, cowering, I’m watching the Special Assignment team assure us for the umpteenth week in a row that there is nothing in the world that we should not be afraid of.

    Stop it. Stop it now and maybe 3rd Degree on e.tv will follow.

  • Mahendra
  • I’m not going to complain about the dorky one-liners. Or the pervy lip-twist. And, frankly, I don’t see why a man in an enlightened society shouldn’t be allowed to wear shoulder pads.

    I’m not complaining at all. I’m just worried about the guy.

    We can’t hear it, but there’s somebody playing death metal and shouting through his earpiece: ”Louder, Mahendra! Louder!”

    Mr Raganath, you’re scaring us.

  • Phone-ins on SAfm
  • We shouldn’t neglect radio. Seriously, who writes the phone-in questions?

    ”Is mob justice becoming a law unto itself?”

    Well, I certainly hope so. If angry mobs started asking permission before tipping things over and breaking stuff, well, that would just be confusing.

  • Katie Melua
  • There are nine million bicycles in Beijing and twice as many adverts on SABC3 with Katie Melua telling us about it.

  • Lotti, Rodrigo, Il Divo
  • SABC3’s catalogue of simpering, silly music is inexhaustible.

    ”Remember the name,” says the ad, ad nauseam. ”Cortez!”

    Remember the cure: Cor-enza!

    I know, this all seems irrelevant when the issue’s so damn big.

    The public broadcaster should be the voice of democracy. Consciously anti-establishment. Troublemaking. Alive. A lot is at stake.

    But maybe my parents got something right. Maybe it’s the small stuff we should be sweating.

    The keys. The books. And Il Divo.