Pretoria - Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa has welcomed the decision taken by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to raise local content on its radio stations to 90 percent.
“Local content broadcast is an important element in the economy, as it determines market share. The more local content is used by broadcasters and other users the more the owners of the content receive financial benefit,” Minister Mthethwa said in a statement on Monday.
Last week, the SABC committed itself to playing 90 percent local music across its 18 radio stations.
“We would also like to impress on all local content producers the importance of keeping ownership of their content, because if the content is sold to external players, the inevitable result is that money accrued through the exploitation of the rights will eventually leave our shores,” the Minister said.
He explained that the selling of local catalogues or local intellectual property to non-local parties can also work against this major breakthrough.
The Department of Arts and Culture is committed to providing support to the smaller players in the industry.
“As such the department is committed to providing not only support for developing products, but also assistance and advice relevant to the protection of ownership rights and thus ensuring that local content remains local in a true sense,” Minister Mthethwa said.
He said the onus is now on local content producers to continue to develop and produce content for radio and television broadcast that maintains the current standard of quality and innovation.
“We thank SABC for leading the way in practice and look forward to the implementation of a new copyright regime that benefits the creative industries and artists in particular. Let other broadcasters also follow suit,” Minister Mthethwa said. – SAnews.gov.za
